


A Cold Hearted Boy

by TheCalamity



Series: The Monsters Within [2]
Category: FF7, FFVII, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Dark, Father-Son Relationship, Forgiveness, Gen, Horror, Human Experimentation, Isolation, Mental Illness, Nature Versus Nurture, Obsession, Parent-Child Relationship, Psychological Drama, SOLDIER - Freeform, Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, Serious, ShinRa Science Department, Shinra Company, Slow Burn, bioethics, young sephiroth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2018-09-16 16:37:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 25
Words: 52,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9280250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCalamity/pseuds/TheCalamity
Summary: Hojo stepped back, a wide, thoughtless stride.He was stunned, taken by his own actions. Physical confrontation was beneath him. He had only ever struck one other; the boy's father.Perhaps that is why he hit him, because the boy's question was as valid as it was hurtful, as ugly as it was fair. Perhaps it was because he had looked like his father when he asked it, so sullen and hopeless andweak.Remorse flood him as the boy held his small hands to his small cheek, wore a small look of wounded betrayal. Hojo almost knelt, took him in his arms, embraced him in apology for all the things he could not know. Instead, he shoved a gnarled finger between the boy's unnaturally glowing green eyes."What are you, achild?!"The boy blinked. He could have killed Hojo if he wanted to, they both knew. Crushed his throat, squeezed the life from him with his small fingers. But a child he was, a little boy. As loyal and eager to please as his father had been. "No, Professor."Hojo straightened. "You are nothing of the sort.  You are no stupid, silly child. You have no business asking stupid, silly questions. You areSephiroth. And you willneverask me that again."





	1. Data

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a continuation of [The Nightmare Begins](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8201843/chapters/18789221), and is part two of a three part series.
> 
> Does not consider events outside of the original game (BC, CC, AC, DoC etc) as firm canon. 
> 
> All art by me.

 

 

 

_In. And out._

 

Gast's knuckles dug against the inner seams of his pockets.

 

_In. And out._

 

The ShinRa building was not as it once was. It was sleek and shiny and very very big, a sky high erection of glass and chrome. A monument of wealth and power and smooth, slick opulence. The floors were polished marble with geometric inlays of blue stone. Almost everything else was glass. The reception desks, the pillars, the elevators. Accents of gold were used where glass would not do-- desktops, decorative panelling. The building was as excessive and tacky as the man who shared it's namesake.

 

Midgar wasn't the same either, with its eight wedged sectors, the people of the slums packed in dense beneath the plates, canned meat. 

 

Professor Gast had changed too.

 

The last time he had been in the ShinRa headquarters it was bidding farewell to his laboratory and administrative staff, the Science Department, preparing to depart on an extended expedition to Nibelheim. To a hidden hope housed in the heart of Mako Reactor 00, a mission to coax the silent secrets from a woman locked for eons in ice. A Cetra, the key to the Promise Land.

 

Hojo had been with him as they said their goodbyes, Lucy too. And Vincent Valentine. Hojo had stood with a sour, stiff look, annoyed by the sentiments and well wishes. Lucrecia had checked and rechecked her affairs, sparked with nervous excitement. And Vincent...

 

Vincent.

 

Gast stopped midstride, felt his heart seized by some dark tendril, some memory of the Turk; of Vincent's wild and frantic face, a stunned and bewildered father and his desperate pleas for help.

 

_"Gast, Gast Gast!! You have to help us, you have to--"_

 

The thing in the reactor, that... _monster_ , that rat he had injected with Jenova cells, that had bit him-- a horrible, nightmare creature not human or beast or anything but an _abomination_. It wore his face. A gross mockery and...

 

_"Lucy is sick-- she's bleeding-- she's in labor you have to help us, you have to..."_

 

The thing he had excavated from the glacier, the thing he had pinned decades of obsession and focus on was not what they had thought; but a parasite with the ability to physically mimic its host. 

 

_"Keep her safe, Gast, please!"_

 

The gun. He had taken Vincent's gun. It was big and bulky, and deceptively heavy. Vincent cleaned that pistol at the kitchen table every morning with all of the care in the world. All the love in him forced and focused onto that gun, with nowhere else to put it. Gast had seen it in Vincent, all that unflinching, fierce, devastating love when he pushed the muzzle against Lucrecia's womb and prayed. For forgiveness? Maybe.

 

_"That baby is mine, not Hojo's. And right now you have my gun up against my family."_

 

Gast couldn't do it. Couldn't pull the trigger on Lucy and whatever it was that grew inside her. Or on Vincent, so deeply over his head, so absolutely unaware. Nor could he pull the trigger on himself. So he ran. He ran and ran and ran. He had abandoned them. All of them. Everything.

 

But Jenova was not a Cetra, Sephiroth was not a baby, just a thing that took one's shape. And Lucrecia... Lucy was dead. He had heard rumors, strange stirrings about a monstrosity born to a young, beautiful prodigy scientist. That she had not survived its birth, and that the creature had become the secret obsession of ShinRa Electric Power Company. 

 

Something _terrible_ had happened at that house. And where the scientists once lived and worked and hoped there was nothing but ghosts and whispers. A massacre.  And a monster.

 

_In. And out._

 

An objective, a reminder to breathe, a focus. It didn't matter. Gast's fingertip searched the text engraved onto a gold plated directory in the lobby, stopped on what he had been seeking. Tapped over the letters, for reassurance. For luck? _Archives. Floor 45._ Gast was dressed in a red checked flannel jacket, wore a wide brimmed hat. He had grown out his beard and dusty brown hair in preparation. From all the sources he could access, Hojo was not currently present. He was away, gone on to the new military base in Junon for a week at minimum. As long as he kept to unrestricted areas, blended with the public, stayed away from the Science Department, he felt confident in his mantra. Get to the archives, get the research, go.

 

_In. And out._

 

The ShinRa had opened the lower levels of their building to the public. The old adage that wealth equated to power was nowhere more applicable than here; a weapons manufacturer turned electric company turned government entity with full military. As a public relations move, members of the general public were encouraged to visit. To sip lattes in the atrium cafe, to peruse the small and sleek museum of ShinRa history, to meet and mingle with the Mayor and other political props. And to browse their library, the works of Bugengagen and Gast, Grimoire and...

 

Grimoire had been his friend, just as Vincent had. Grimoire and Vincent and Sephiroth, fathers and sons and sons and sons and... Gast thought of Iflana, her dark brown hair and huge green eyes. Would the child in her be a boy too? He hoped for a girl. Some esoteric rip in a conceptual cycle that didn't even make sense. Iflana had begged him not to go. 

 

Gast kept his face angled down, tried to move casually as he navigated through the lobby, through the elevator banks and ShinRa employees in expensive suits and skirts. He had considered asking someone to go in his place, but there were few in the world who could locate what he needed in so much material. Whoever he could think to send, if he had been able to think of anyone at all,  would be in grave danger if caught and outed. He would have no more death on his hands. 

 

The melodic ding of the elevator announcing his arrival at the archives seemed strangely foreboding for such a cheery sound. The library was silent, empty and still. Gast could hear the quiet droning of air circulation, surreal in its accent of the rows and rows of sleeping shelves. Pools of soft focused light bathed each section, arranged into subjects. Gast wiped his palms against his thighs, an attempt to blot away the clamminess of his fists. Urban Development, Space Development, Weapons Development, Science...

 

There were no books on the shelves, just white plastic folios containing data drives. Gast walked his fingers along their spines, his lips forming silent words as he read their names. Three folios were removed from the shelves, tucked under his arm. _Final Evolutionary Stages in Humans_ , _The Ancients in History_ , and _Doctor Gast Faremis, Biologist._ He took them to a computer station, opened the first of the folios with trembling hands, connected the data drive. _The Ancients in History_  contained the bulk of his life's work, decades of research on the Cetra. He watched the papers and reports flicker across the screen as they copied to his own drive, thought how elementary and pretentious his early work had been.   

 

 His mind kept drifting back home, to the small, frozen village at the base of the Great Glacier, where he had first found Jenova all those years before. And _her_. Iflana.  The real thing had been right under his nose all along. 

 

And her experiences, her history, her personal accounts made so much of Gast's research seem trivial, pointless, juvenile. But he needed it now, the kernels of useful material buried in all the muck. The research concerning genetics, the reproduction of the Ancients and the hypothetical breeding of a Cetra and a human. It was no longer hypothetical. Iflana was pregnant, no longer the last of her kind. 

 

Gast conjured Lucy's memory involuntarily, her thin petite frame so rounded in the middle she looked cutely comical. With her sweet, exuberant face and her excited, oversized gestures. Lucy laughed openly and often, and when she got really going, when her knees lift and she hunched forward, wrapped her mouth in those thin pretty fingers, she'd snort. He had loved her-- a daughter. _I'm so damn sorry, Lu._

 

He tugged his glasses down, pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stave off the burn of tears. 

 

 _Final Evolutionary Stages of Humans_ was next for transfer, a simple swap of external data drives. Gast was beyond thankful the transfers were going so quickly.

 

He hesitated before plugging in his own file-- it was curiosity that had prompted him to grab it in the first place.  _Doctor Gast Faremis, Biologist._ The data transfers of the others had been so fast; and these files could not possibly be as large. It would be a matter of mere minutes. He had come all this way, and, he reasoned, if his file was current, knowing his status with the ShinRa would be beneficial. Was he missing? Dead? Wanted? 

 

A login screen appeared on the monitor, restricted access. 

 

Gast immediately disconnect the drive, snapped it back into the folio. He grabbed the others and stood, moved quickly to the shelf he had taken them from. Each folio was slid back into place, no one the wiser. He had accomplished what he had come for. Just as he had ensured Iflana. 

 

_In. And out._

 

Attempting to access his file had been foolish. Whatever was in it wasn't worth the risk. Gast moved quickly, wove through the rows of shelves, spilled out into the hallway. A few employees passed him with no regard, occupied with their own tasks. Beads of sweat spotted his brow as he waited for the elevator, watched it rise to meet him through the glass walls. He tried to keep his composure as he slipped through the parted doors, pushed 'L' for lobby and jammed his thumb repeatedly into the door close button. _Almost there. Down to the ground floor, down and out and away and never, ever again. I'm so sorry, Lu._

 

The elevator moved, but in the wrong direction. He was going up.

 

His gut dropped when the elevator stopped on the 59th floor, as the doors parted to reveal a pair of men approaching from either side. Gast kept his face to the floor, his shoulders slumped in defeated surrender. He did not look as he felt the coil of fingers around his left bicep, another set on his right, and a flash of navy blue. For a moment, he hoped it was Vincent as much as he feared the same. 

 

"Sir, come with us."


	2. Old Friends

 

 

 

 

 

"Gast-fucking-Faremis."

 

Veld looked the biologist over from behind steepled hands. The men that had dragged him into the security office swiped off his hat, shoved him front and center of the desk and the man who sat behind it, the head of the Department of Administrative Research. 

 

"Back from the dead! The President used to credit you with working miracles. And all this time I thought you were just a _scientist_." Veld pushed back in his chair, stood. Gast had not seen the leader of the Turks for over a decade, but age had been kind to his rough features and not changed him much. A few more scars, some deep creases in his brow. Gast wondered what the years would look like on Vincent-- he pictured Grimoire instead.

 

Veld rounded his large mahogany desk, crossed the room to meet the missing scientist. Without a word, Veld cracked Gast across the jaw with a closed, precision fist. Gast crumpled unceremoniously. Neither of the Turks moved to catch him before he hit the floor.

 

"You son of a bitch," Veld spat, squeezed and popped his knuckles, shook out his hand. "Do you have _any_ idea what your absence has cost?"

 

Gast curled in on himself against the floor, the cool tile a meager comfort against his cheek. _All too much_. He made no attempt to get up. In all of the possible fates that stemmed from being apprehended, being brought to Veld Dragoon was probably the best; even if the throb of his face said otherwise.

 

"You owe me a _lot_ of answers, old man. I should have you executed for treason!" Veld folded his thick, heavy arms across his chest, narrowed his dark and thoughtful eyes. Gast pushed himself to his knees, straightened his glasses. Time had not been as kind to Gast as it had been to Veld. Guilt and trauma had etched deep lines in his brow and around his eyes, grew tufts of white at his temples.

 

"Not treason. I want nothing to do with the ShinRa."

 

"Oh? Because, and maybe I'm missing something here, sneaking around ShinRa's headquarters attempting to access ShinRa's restricted files seems like _everything_ to do with the ShinRa. Is someone attempting to pay you off for your research? Who sent you in here?"

 

Gast was surprised by the accusation. It was a logical one, but it ground away at his hopes for old rapport between himself and Veld, a hope he was dependent on. "You know me. I've no interest in money and never had! It is time and effort I'm after-- My entire life's work is in those files."

 

"Your life's work has been in those files, right where you put them, since the day you left for Nibelheim. You clearly had no intention of making yourself known, sneaking around my building like a rat. You're a smart man, Gast. You understand how suspicious this is."

 

"It isn't. I assure you. Everything I've done is in those files. I needed my research, for personal use and record. That is all."

 

"That is absolute bullshit. Why now? After, _fuck_ , what, eight years?! What raised you from the dead?"

 

"...I never claimed to be dead."

 

Veld bit back the urge to kick him to the floor, inflamed by the insulting implications of Gast's response. "Well you didn't do a damn thing to make anyone think otherwise!"

 

Gast's made an attempt to conceal his frown as he pieced together Veld's perspective. He had fled the ShinRa mansion, ran out into the biting, blinding night storm. Ran from the Jenova Project, abandoned them and... Vincent must have told them, report on his escape. And when they didn't find his body, the Turks must have assumed him frozen and lost, consumed by the mountain, an eye-for-an-eye, an exchange for the thing he took from it long ago.

 

Gast's guilt blistered. "I was..."

 

Veld narrowed his eyes as he extend a hand, helped the scientist to his feet and with a wave, dismissed the other Turks. Veld walked back to his desk, sat himself slowly in his chair. There was something beyond anger present in his voice-- a clear conflict. The obligations of the head of security butt up against the curiosity of a colleague, a desire for answers to far more personal questions. Veld watched quietly as Gast brushed off his knees, straightened his jacket. "Where have you been all this time, and why?"

 

Gast looked behind him, to the empty space the other Turks had been, to the closed door with it's frosted window. He hesitated, a long and loaded pause before he spoke. "In hiding."

 

"Ah. So you're a traitor _and_ a coward," Veld shrugged, unimpressed and guarded.

 

"I never said I was dead, and I never said I was proud. Things are--"

 

"--Things are different." Veld cut, definitive and accusatory. "You die, disappear, vanish, _hide_ , whatever-- Not sure how much you keep up with current events sipping cocktails on the beaches of Costa Del Sol, or whatever the fuck you've been doing, but it's..." Veld stopped himself, straightened his tie. "Sit down. You're making me uncomfortable standing there."

 

Gast did as he had been instructed, his movements timid and tired. "I've heard things." Gast's voice was ripe with sadness, a syrupy remorsefulness. "They say the Jenova Project was a success."

 

Veld snort. "They do say that, don't they? See, I remember when the Jenova Project was all about finding the Promise Land, locating wells of Mako to convert into electricity. Not mad-scientist bullshit, experimenting on humans and making fucking _monsters_."

 

Gast's fist hit the desktop, hard enough to disturb the surface of the coffee that had gone cold in Veld's mug. "As do I! None of that was supposed to happen, none--"  Tears had flood Gast's warm brown eyes, thick and glossy.

 

Veld arched a brow, his interest clear on his face.

 

Gast shift in his seat, pulled at his composure until it was secure around him. He sucked in a deep breath, exhaled. "The goal of the Jenova Project was as it was stated in its proposal. We were to find and replicate the mechanisms the Cetra used to find mako wells. Mechanically! We were to find the biological components linked to this, take the data to Bugenhagen and construct the machines. That whole business with Sephiroth..." Gast blot away a tear before it could reach his cheek, "I did not authorize any of that. Hojo acted behind my back, he betrayed me! I didn't even know about it until..."

 

Veld leaned in. "Until?"

 

Gast attempted to calm himself, keep his words slow and steady. Veld was not a definitive ally, not yet. “I would have never authorized that sort of experimentation. Calling it unethical is like calling the oceans ‘damp.’” Gast’s fists clenched tight in his lap and his face darkened. “There was no prior testing, no proposals, no safety measures, nothing! If proper protocol was followed, if the hypothesis had been present and reviewed by an ethics committee, perhaps I may have been willing to consider this sort of experimentation down the road after years and years of pre-testing but I…” Gast was rambling, caught himself. “There is not anyone on the face of this planet more interested in the Cetra than me, Veld. _Nobody_. I am not blind to the potential benefits of what Hojo was attempting. But this was wildly, wildly dangerous. And Sephiroth…"

 

"What happened in Nibelheim, Professor?"

 

"Where is Vincent?" Gast asked abruptly despite himself, nothing well thought or confident. Subconscious. "I'd... like to see him. I need... to apologize. For some things."

 

The line of Veld's lips went tight, but the rest of his face retained an expression of cold, conflicted interest. "What are you hiding from? Start at the beginning."

 

Gast’s shoulders slumped and he dropped his head between them, leaned over onto elbows and knees. For a while, Veld thought Gast would not speak again, a surrender to whatever fate the ShinRa deemed appropriate for a deserter who knew far too much.

 

“Lucrecia… She was…” Gast lift his face, his eyes once again glossed in tears behind the thick lenses of his glasses. “She was… brilliant. But she struggled tremendously with her place in this world. About eighteen months after we first began, she and Hojo married. It was a mere month later that Hojo told me of her pregnancy. I was stunned, and of course, suspicious-- Hojo and Lu-- but working together so intensely, on a confidential project, isolated in that house… I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I should have trusted my instincts.”

 

Veld had grabbed a pen from his desk, clicked the retractor idly as he listened. The look on his face had turned sour, something angry festering beneath the facade.

 

“Before I knew of any possible romantic relations, and as I am sure you were informed in Vincent’s reports, we were attacked by an eco terrorist. Vincent shot and killed the man, and it spooked Lu badly. She became obsessed with the idea of a modern Cetra solving all the problems of the world, hunger and violence and pollution and all that. I believe Hojo may have taken advantage of this.”

 

“Vincent was also romantically involved with Ms. Crescent. Until she dumped him for Hojo.” Veld added, something nasty in his tone.   

 

Gast sighed, paled. He looked ill. “I knew that he was smitten with her, a man his age, who wouldn’t be? Ah, 'smitten' is the wrong word. Was head over heels in _love_ with her. But I didn’t know they were actually involved. I should have.”

 

“He wrote about her a lot,” Veld’s frown was obvious, even though it was apparent he was attempting to appear neutral. “Asked to rearrange his budget to buy her flowers. _Flowers!_ He said she was always commenting on how gloomy the mansion was, and that it would ‘greatly improve her morale.’ When I denied the request, he took it out of his own stipend and probably ate nothing but canned peas for a week. I thought he was going to throw himself off the mountain when he wrote that she left him for Hojo. He assured me that he was fine and refused reassignment.” Veld’s thumb worked the pen. _Click. Click. Click._ “...Idiot.”

 

“He would have. Even after she married Hojo he never left her side unless she told him to. Lu was a gifted scientist. But she was naive in many ways. Hojo inject her baby with Jenova cells in secret. Vincent discovered this and informed me. I ran my own version of their experiment, injected Jenova cells into some rats. One of them bit me and…” Gast paused, anxious.

 

_Click. Click. Click._

 

 _“_ Jenova is no Cetra. Whatever it is, it can somehow merge with DNA from another source, mimic its host physically, _perfectly_. We sequenced that DNA for over a year-- _nothing_ was off. Not a _thing_. It seems to be a parasite. What I made… with that rat… it was a _monster._  I was terrified. I meant to kill Sephiroth, stop the thing from coming to be. It would be kinder in the end, safer… for _all_ of us.”

 

“You have no idea how right you are,” Veld sighed. _Click._

 

“Vincent…” Gast removed his glasses, blot at his tears with the cuff of his sleeve.

 

Veld narrowed his eyes. _Click. Click._

 

“When he found out about the injections, Lu was supposed to have been seven or so months along. She went into labor two weeks later. I’ve thought about this all for eight years, Veld. Sephiroth wasn’t pre-term, he came right when he was supposed to. I told you how deeply Lu was affected by Vincent killing that eco-terrorist. She married Hojo almost _immediately_ after that incident. I thought her pregnancy came on too fast, but it all makes sense.”

 

_Click. Click. Click._

 

Gast licked his lips, sat straight in his chair. “She was already pregnant.”

 

_...Click._

 

“Vincent… he… he had _no_ idea. I don’t think anyone knew but Lu. She must have told him right before I saw them last. He was absolutely frantic, begged me for my help, he was trying to get her out of Nibelheim and away from Hojo and-- I meant to kill Sephiroth, but I couldn’t do it. Not to her, not to _him_ … I ran. He needed me and I abandoned him and I--” Gast swallowed, pulled back his confessional, the need to release his guilt to another. “Can I see him? Please?”

 

The pen hit the desktop, ricochet off and into Gast’s chest. He was very lucky it was only a pen. Any attempt Veld had made to keep his expression hidden vanished, melt into an open display of anger and hurt.

 

Gast jumped in his seat, startled by the reaction. Veld dropped his elbows onto the desk, deposit his head into his palms. He rubbed at his temples, hoped to knead out his rage before he took another swing. He did not lift his head to respond. “No.”

 

“No…?”

 

“ _No_.”

 

“Veld, it would mean everything in the world to me if I could apologize and--”

 

“He’s _dead_ , Gast.” Veld tipped his head back, dragged his hands down his face. “...Fuck.”

 

Gast’s heart nearly stopped. “ _Vincent?!_ W...what happened?”

 

“He lost his damn _mind_ is what happened!”

 

 _The Berserker._  Gast’s lips part, opened and closed several times before he spoke. “I thought… it had been years since, I thought…”

 

“Yeah. Me too. But he snapped. I sent a unit out to check the reactor and retrieve Sephiroth-- and he _slaughtered_ all of them. Except one. And that one only made it out of there only because he _let_ him. Took out the doctor that delivered Sephiroth, doctor’s family, damn near half the town! Hojo only made it out because he was locked in that damned basement lab of his. And when Vince snaps… he doesn’t think.”

 

Gast straightened, his heart in his stomach as he recalled Vincent’s anguished pleading. The panic and determination and desperation on the young man’s face, a new and bewildered father with his baby on the way, surrounded by the hungry darkness of sickness and danger and…

 

“Hojo reports Ms. Crescent died during childbirth. He says Vincent was distraught, blamed himself for her death.”  Veld paused, a foul taste in his mouth. “But now it all makes sense. Vincent was the best gunman I’d ever met. He was a perfect Turk. But he was a mess when it came to emotions. He’d get so worked up, he just… stopped thinking. He’d turn into a bull charging around a china shop. I knew that boy since they dragged him into the old ShinRa building shackled up like a war criminal. He was this… rampaging chaos entity that needed rules and order to keep him in line. He was... very dear to me.”

 

“I’m… so sorry.” Gast didn’t know what else to say.

 

“Ahh, I suppose it was my fault as much as any. He had it so together for so long. Still, I knew he was a risk. I curated his assignments. You have no idea how close I was to pulling him when he started writing about Lucrecia. I damn well should have. The Jenova Project seemed perfect for him. Secretive, remote, _boring_ \--  but everything makes sense now, now that I know you _abandoned_ him with his dying beloved laboring his kid he didn't know he had until moments before, who, by the way, was pumped full of-- what did you call it? Cells from a parasite? --to a reactor full of monsters and _worse,_ fucking Hojo.” Veld’s tone was still ripe with angry accusation, but it had been softened by sadness.

 

“Hojo… confirmed this?”

 

“Yeah. And one other. Remember I told you Vince let one of my Turks live? They’re a Turk to this day. Tseng. He was front and center. Hojo claims Vincent was in a daze, took off into the mountains. He was in pedestrian clothing, unarmed. We searched for him for _weeks_.”

 

“Did you find anything?”

 

“...Yeah. His lower left arm. There was a deep cut on his third finger, all the way around. Fingerprints matched.”

 

The men sat in silence, an old comradery restored, a bond in sorrow. Gast spoke first.

 

“And… Sephiroth?”

 

Veld let out a noise, amused or disgusted or both. “ShinRa’s lust and Hojo’s obsession. Hojo’s promised the President a super-soldier, the be-all-end-all of biological weaponry. With you gone, ShinRa handed your department to Hojo and they treat him like a goddam hero. Everything has gone to shit since. We’re still an electric company on the surface, but it’s only to finance the SOLDIER program.”

 

Gast hesitated, asked the question answered every night by his horrible, haunted dreams. “What… _is_ he?”

 

“Sephiroth…?” Veld stood, his usual swagger entirely absent. He thought of his own daughter, her messy hair and the freckles spattered across her nose and cheeks. Veld had made it a point to avoid Sephiroth where he could-- but the few encounters with the boy always reminded him of Vincent, a fact he had once attributed to circumstances. He remembered something he had said to Vincent once long ago, now consumed by a crushing sense of renewed loss.

 

 _The way to a man's heart is through his balls._  

 

“...I suppose you should see for yourself.”

 


	3. Consequence 487

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested listening - [Doing the Right Thing - Daughter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU5F-DvGLkA)

Gast jumped when the door to the security office opened, slunk down in relief at the realization it was only Veld. Sitting alone for hours to ponder his fate, wonder if he’d ever see Iflana again, to regret ever returning churned his stomach into rolls of nearly unbearable anxiety. Veld said he’d be back; and Veld had kept his word. The Turk tossed a plastic tote atop his desk, rummaged through it. “You ready? Gear up.”

 

Veld pulled a set of pale green scrubs from the bag, handed them to Gast. “It won't surprise you that Sephiroth is kept in a highly secured area. Thankfully, you got friends in high places. _Somehow_. I’m nowhere near ready to forgive you, and don’t you forget that.”

 

Gast tugged the legs of the scrubs over his pants, worked on the top. “Trust me. I won't forget. That makes you and me both. What is the plan?”

 

“Dinner is brought to Sephiroth at 1900 by an orderly. Nobody is allowed to show their face to him, so everyone going in and out of that unit is well covered. Should blend in. Follow my lead and I’ll get you in.”

 

“Nobody?” Gast raised a brow, worked the laces of the cloth medical mask into a knot at the nape of his neck, pinched the metal band tight across the bridge of his nose.

 

“ _Nobody_ ,” Veld confirmed as he passed Gast a hairnet, “except Hojo.”

 

“Of course. And Hojo’s reasoning for this is…?”

 

“The procedures he enforces regarding Project S are thicker than a dictionary. Everything Sephiroth does is on a schedule, down to when he shits. When I said Hojo was obsessed, I wasn’t kidding.”

 

Gast wiggled the hairnet over the top of his head, adjust his glasses. “But the masks, not letting him see anyone’s faces...”

 

“Sephiroth is being fine tuned into a super-weapon. Hojo doesn’t want him forming attachments, thinking of people as, well… _people_.”

 

Gast froze under a wash of fear and disgust.

 

“Fuck. He used to have dark hair, dark eyes. But then again, so does Hojo...” Veld was leaning back against the edge of his desk, drummed his fingers on the underside of the ledge. “I can’t believe that’s _Vince’s_ kid. Nobody below the executive level knows anything about his origins. There are rumors of course… and rumors about those rumors. Last I heard, anyone so much as thinks about mentioning Sephiroth’s parentage or the Jenova Peoject wins themselves a one way trip to the pit.”

 

“The _pit_?”

 

“The arena where Sephiroth trains. Hojo locks him in there with… things. Lets him out when everything is dead.”

 

Gast wore a look of unease, clear even behind the medical mask. “You said he ‘used to.’”

 

“His hair? Yeah. And eyes. Changed color. Part of Sephiroth’s conditioning involves trace injections of Mako. Hojo is doing all sorts mad-scientist shit. Speaking to “the specimen” is strictly forbidden. No talking, no touching. Minimal interaction. His purpose is to kill. When he gets a bit older, he'll be socialized on a stagger system. The plan is to have him socially adjusted enough to interface externally, but never so much he betrays the ShinRa or questions orders. Hojo is insistent about his ‘psychological foundation’.” Veld rubbed at an eye with the heel of his hand, clearly distressed, but he said nothing of it. Instead, he glanced to the photo of his daughter on his desk, laid it face down. The idea of Sephiroth as a person, as a child, as the son of his dear friend was not one he wanted anything to do with.

 

Gast baulked. “You cannot socialize any creature that way without disastrous consequences! You can't train something that powerful to obey only the commands of one! What is all this super-weapon nonsense anyway, what about the Promise Land?!”

 

“Who is going to tell Hojo that? _You_? You could have, if you hadn't run off and basically handed the Science Department to that twisted fucker,” Veld spat. He pulled back against the wave of resentment, calmed his tone. “Sephiroth is obscenely powerful, but he couldn’t find a pit of mako if he fell into one.”

 

“Of course he can’t,” Gast bristled, “Jenova was no Cetra. Just looked like one.”

 

“We used to be a good company, Faremis. We used to make life better for a lot of people. We were the gears of progress.”

 

“Why don’t _you_ leave?”

 

“Because I’ve put my entire adult life into this machine? Because I’ve lost a lot to it? Because if all the people who give a damn about what we used to be leave… there's got to be something here worth salvaging.”

 

“I need more time. But with my old research, what I learn here about Sephiroth, I could--”

 

Veld stood up straight. “You aren't thinking of trying to come _back_ are you?”

 

Gast sighed. “Knowing all of this… I have a lot of wrongs to make right. So much of this is my fault, Veld. I don't think I have a _choice_.”

 

“Hojo would never give up the Science Department. Especially not to _you_. The execs are eating out of his hand. You'd have to have a damn good angle--”

 

Gast thought of Iflana; missed her so much it made him queasy. A real Cetra, with a real way to find the Promise Land. If Sephiroth was unable to locate mako, it was unlikely the ShinRa would object to something that could. “...I just may.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

†††

 

 

 

 

 

 

The men exit the elevator on the 67th floor side by side, passed through the massive and labyrinthian hallways of the Science Department. “Go ahead, take a left. There is a bulletin board near the first access point. Read it and wait for me. When I go through, you follow close behind.”

 

Gast nodded, took a deep breath and forced himself forward. He attempted to be subtle in his observation of the building, as he marveled at the equipment and technologies and the size. He looked to the floor to hide his face whenever someone past him, matched his speed and gait to those around him. The people in this area wore standard lab coats and no facial coverings; nor did they pay him any mind. He stopped at the bulletin board, scanned the postings. It was a log concerning Sephiroth’s activity.

 

_0600: mako, 1cc. blood draw._

_0605: BGL_ _5.0 mmol/L_

_0613: urine output 240ml._

_0630: breakfast, 432kal._

 

Gast's attention was pulled from the log at the sound of a cleared throat. Veld swiped a keycard through a module next to the access door, rolled his thumb against the scanner. The door swung open and Veld walked through. Gast made sure to seem casual as he turned to follow the navy blue of Veld’s back.

 

There were far less people behind the secured door and all of them, as Veld had suggested, wore masks. The area had a small reception desk and looked very much like a standard hospital unit, if a bit more advanced.  “Nance!” Veld jogged over to the desk, leaned in toward the woman who sat behind it, “I need to talk to you a second. Got a few questions.” Veld looked to Gast, gestured with his chin to a passing orderly pushing a food cart.

 

The orderly stopped outside of a metal door, grabbed the keycard from his lanyard and swiped it. He released the brakes of the cart with his toe, prepared to push it through when the door swung inward.

 

“Hey!” Veld’s voice cut through the quiet, “You! Leave that there a minute and come over; I’ve got a question about some security footage.”

 

The orderly hesitated, nodded an acceptance. When he turned to walk to Veld, Gast grabbed the cart and pushed through the door.

 

The room beyond was small and sterile. There was a hospital bed, some monitoring equipment, a stainless steel bedside table and a television. A little boy sat in the center of the bed, cross legged and transfixed by the TV screen. He was all elbows and knees and head, wore a plain gray teeshirt and a pair of black nylon shorts. His hair fell in ringlets to his shoulders, a glossy white. A video cassette case lay on the bedspread next to him, _Xtreme Snowboarding feat. Johnny X._

 

The child turned when Gast pushed the cart up against the bedside, tilt his head to the side as he searched for something familiar in the man who stood next to it. Gast was stunned into speechlessness. He extend his hand without thinking, pulled a fall of the boy’s wavy white hair aside with crawling fingers for a clear view of Sephiroth’s face. “Gods and Gaia,” Gast exhaled, locked his eyes into the boy’s, a green that should not have been possible. The color of pure mako. They almost seemed to glow. “You look _exactly_ like your father.”

 

Sephiroth froze when Gast’s fingertips brushed his cheek, hooked his hair. The boy’s eyes had gone wide, rimmed by the fluffy white of his eyelashes. There was something strange on his face, a look of confused violation, apparent in the slack of his jaw and the slow dilation of his pupils, in his posture so suddenly stiff, motionless.

 

Gast could not bring himself to look away, entangled in those eyes, unnatural and yet so absolutely, unmistakably human.

 

Sephiroth raised his own hand to meet Gast’s, steady and smooth, and his small fingers curled around Gast’s thumb. The boy peeled Gast’s hand away from his cheek, continued the downward pull-- and twist. Gast grimaced behind the cloth mask, sucked back a cry of hurt-- he did not want to startle Sephiroth, make it worse. The strength of Sephiroth’s grip was astounding, a clash of awe and pain surged through the scientist as his thumb continued to rotate, as he heard his joints pop out of place.

 

It hurt so bad the world went black, a flicker in and out of consciousness. Sephiroth’s expression was unchanged, parted lips and surprised, offended eyes. He continued to twist Gast’s thumb, the rest of his arm rotating behind.

 

“Y-y-y-...ou like TV?” Gast sputtered, desperate.

 

The boy paused. It wasn’t until Sephiroth blinked that Gast realized he had not done so before. Sephiroth’s slacked mouth pulled shut, and he gave a timid nod.

 

“S-s-s-...snowboarding? You like snowboarding?”

 

The boy nodded again as he uncoiled his fingers and withdrew his hand, tucked it safely away in his lap. He turned his attention back to the television, his face aglow in the pale blue wash of the screen. He rolled his shoulder against his cheek several times, rubbed at the spot Gast had touched him as if it had been a sloppy wet kiss.

 

Gast focused on his breathing, mindful to exhale out each throb of pain. Sephiroth did not seem as if he had intended to cause such harm; it was clear that if the boy had meant to hurt him, he would no longer have a functional arm. There was something deeply disturbing about such power in something so small. Sephiroth’s insecure, withdrawn demeanor was at stark odds with the amazing strength he had just displayed. Aside from his strange coloration, he looked like a normal child, big eyed and big cheeked-- and so much like Vincent.

 

Sephiroth picked idly at a scab that ran across his knee, captivated by the events on the television. The announcer on the screen tracked a snowboarder’s decent, called out obstacles, commented on the man’s technique and enthusiastically announced the names of his tricks.  

 

Gast nursed one thumb over the other, rubbed at the hurt in his wrist-- and watched Sephiroth watch the screen.

 

 _“Here he comes folks, almost to the end of the slope! If he-- is he--”_ The snowboarder launched into a front flip, rotate completely and landed with a massive spray of snow as he pivot his board to a stop. The audience gathered at the base of the slope on the television went wild. _“He did it!! Ladies and gentleman, he really did it! Johnny X just beat The Zolom’s record!”_

 

Sephiroth bounced to standing, pumped his little arms in a celebration of victory. He lept to the center of his bed, continued to jump, harder and higher. “He did it! Did you see that?! Did you see him?!”

 

Gast instinctively raised his arms, ready to catch, worried the boy would bounce himself off the bed and into a concusion. “Hey! Careful!”

 

Sephiroth jumped in a circle, jumped sideways and backwards, then finally slowed as he eyed Gast with suspicion, until his feet no longer left the bed, until his bouncing became stillness. “...You aren’t supposed to talk.”

 

Gast was shocked by Sephiroth’s burst of enthusiasm, so childlike. Unfitting of an entire secured wing of the ShinRa building, of guards and equipment and...  An over excited little boy, not an abomination. Gast nodded in response, held up his uninjured hand in a gesture of understanding.

 

Sephiroth hopped off the bed, wiped the wavy white hair away from his eyes in the way only children do. “Talk _more_.” He lift the plastic lid covering the meal Gast had brought, scrunched up his face in disgust and dropped it back down. “About snowboarding.”

 

Gast cast a nervous look over his shoulder, turned his attention back to Sephiroth. One of his theories came to the forefront of his mind; If the mechanism of Jenova was to replicate the traits of the host it merged with, there was a world in which the Jenova inside him did little but mimic his parent’s DNA. It would explain why Sephiroth looked so very much like his father; it was possible that Jenova targeted Vincent’s DNA because it stood out among Lucrecia’s and Sephiroth’s, pre-injections. If this was even remotely true, the child in front of him was far more child than monster.

 

“Again. Talk again. About snowboarding. And don’t touch me.” Sephiroth climbed back into his bed, wrapped his knees in his arms, pulled himself inward, defensive. “I don’t _like_ it.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Gast nodded an apology. “I will never touch you again without your permission. _Promise_.”

 

The lower half of Sephiroth’s face was lost somewhere in his elbows and knees, but his eyes flickered back to Gast, dubious. It seemed the concepts of consent and trust were foreign to him, a realization that pit in Gast’s gut.  

 

It was worse than he had thought. A monster masquerading as a little boy seemed suddenly less terrible than a scared and lonely little boy treated as a monster.

 

“So. Uh,” Gast cleared his throat, “That thing… he did. The jumping,”

 

“A double cork!”

 

“Oh, is that what it is?”

 

“Yeah! Johnny X knows all sorts of tricks, but The Zolom is way faster. ZoooOOooooM! Didja see him break the record!?! Did you?!”

 

“Yes. Very exciting stuff.” Gast nodded, gave another nervous look behind.

 

“Johnny X _always_ beats The Zolom’s record.”

 

“He does?”

 

“487 times.”

 

“487 times? That is… quite a lot.”

 

“Well. Yeah. Coz’ that’s how many times I’ve watched it.”

 

Gast frowned deeply, rubbed at his nose beneath his mask. The realization that the boy was watching the same video over and over, that no matter how many times he saw the same thing, it could elicit such genuine excitement broke his heart. How empty his life must have been, as cold and sterile as his bedroom. “Have you, uh, ever been snowboarding?”

 

Sephiroth shook his head, a fall of white obscuring his face. The excitement had drained from him entirely, left something very small and very sad. “I’m not a snowboarder.”

 

“What are you then?”

 

Gast thought of the look on Vincent’s face, centered in the illuminated circles of his flashlight, the way the Turk’s pupils tightened down to pinpoints in the glare of the beam. The messy black of his hair clumped with sweat, the blood on his left hand, the part of his lips and the glint of the light on his teeth.

 

_“It’s not a human, Vincent! It's not a child!!”_

 

Sephiroth sat up straight, though he still held his knees. He narrowed his eyes. This man was not what he seemed, was not supposed to be there. Nobody was supposed to talk. Or touch. And _everyone_ knew what he was. “I’m a SOLDIER.”


	4. The Calamity

_"You okay to start again?" Gast peered out from behind his video camera, made sure the tripod was stable, checked the focus._

 

_"Yes." Iflana smoothed down her hair, looked into the lens, smiled nervously._

 

_"Don't fret, this is just for personal use. It's easier to do this than to take notes. I don't have to stop you to catch up writing." Gast moved to join her at the table, sat across from her. "Please, continue."_

 

_Iflana set her hands in her lap, closed her huge green eyes as if in meditation. It was a while before she spoke, and Gast did not rush her. "They called it... the ‘Calamity from the Skies.'"_

 

_She did not open her eyes. "At the time, we were inhabiting the southern hemisphere, near where Mideel is now. Lifestream, when crystallized, retains spirit energy. This is what gives us the ability to harness magics. Healing magics, harmful magics. We would find wells of lifestream. When there is an excess of Lifestream, it flows to the surface and in the right conditions, solidifies. It becomes what your people call 'materia.'"_

 

_Gast nodded. "Ancient materia is far more powerful than modern. I had always assumed that this could be attributed to its age, gaining potency and character as a fine wine does."_

 

_"The age of the materia is irrelevant. It is the method in which it came to be. Ancient materia, that was refined by the Cetra, used natural techniques long forgotten. Modern materia is made in synthetic processes. Your people can create elemental materias, fire, ice… minor healing, minor enhancements. Nothing like ours. We made ‘materia’ that could bind with the users mind and manifest beings of lore; among other powerful magics."_

 

_A pang of melancholy hit Gast as he thought of Grimoire, a soft and gentle man, tall and broad and gruffly handsome.  "Yes, we call these ‘summons.’ A dear friend of mine devote his life to the study of summon materia and the stories surrounding them. Is there any way to find this lost knowledge? How to create these powerful magics?"_

 

_Iflana opened her eyes. "Perhaps. Our elders had prophesied a great catastrophe, an event that could end our existence. So we built a temple, one of our only permanent structures. Its purpose was to house our collective knowledge so that if these visions were to come true, all would not be lost. As we feared, the planet shuttered and screamed. It had been immensely wounded. The lifestream seemed to have vanished.”_

 

_“Vanished?”_

 

_“Yes. All of it. Suddenly, new life became impossible. Seeds would not sprout, women and animals birthed only dead things. The balance of life and death was disrupted. The Cetra began to search for the Lifestream, a journey that took us across Gaia and to the northern most continent.”_

 

_Gast suppressed a wave of excitement. They had made their home there, small and cozy as it was, in the place she spoke of. Near Gaea’s Cliff and the impact site, so near so much history._

 

_“We found it. A meteor had fallen from the skies, crashed into what is now known to you as ‘The Northern Crater.’ It was the meteor that made that great hollow. The Lifestream, all of it, was gathering there, attempting to heal the planet’s wound. We tried to help. We prayed. For nine solid months we prayed. The vigil cost many lives. Some starved. Some froze. Some ventured into the wound itself and never came back. Until...” Iflana looked to the surface of the table._

 

_“Until? And then what?”_

 

_She raised her eyes, something sullen in them. “And then it came.”_

 

_The room had gone quiet except for the steady hum of the recording equipment, the clank-clank-clank of steam knocking through the radiator._

 

_Gast frowned. “Do you want to stop?”_

 

_Iflana looked up into his face, her eyes thickly glossed with tears. She wore an expression of determination. “No.”_

 

_“You say ‘we,’ and speak as if you were present. But this was over two thousand years ago, correct?”_

 

_“Memories are passed between us. The Cetra are connected. I was not there. But I remember  .” Iflana paused, continued. “We saw them, the ones who had went inside. We thought they had died. But they came up from the crater. Our brothers, our fathers, our mothers. They were… different. When they returned. They spoke strangely, moved strangely.” _

 

_“Jenova,” Gast interjected._

 

_“The Calamity  ,” Iflana corrected. “She wore their bodies, imitated their voices. She tried to infiltrate and infect us.” _

 

_“Why?”_

 

_“They were... mindless, so it seemed. There seemed to be no conscious motive. It functioned like a sickness, a virus. Just… a move to replicate itself. To spread.”_

 

_Gast thought of the monster in the reactor, how it had stood in the corner, bashed its head over and over and over into the wall, senseless, until it found a target._

 

_“Just because we did not understand its motives does not mean it had none. The Calamity was, in all ways, alien. Perhaps it was so far different from us that we simply could not comprehend it. At first, it was just those who went into the crater. But then the others who had fallen came, as if they had returned from the dead to walk among us once more. We were surrounded by those we had once so loved.”_

 

_“What of your kin, those infected, or duplicated?”_

 

_“We... killed them. We killed our families, our lovers, our friends. We burned their bodies, but more and more died as we fought the specters. And we prayed.” Two tears shot down her cheeks, one on either side of her nose. Her hands stayed still in her lap._

 

_“Alright, Iflana. That is enough for today. Thank you for--”_

 

_Her pretty, ethereal face distorted, possessed by a look of sorrow and discomfort. “Your friend is very upset with you!”_

 

_Gast blinked, surprised. “My friend?”_

 

_Iflana stood abruptly, covered her face with her hands, shook her head. “All black and red. Pain and anger that immense cannot be destroyed, only redistributed! He wants to return to the Lifestream, but he can’t. He’s trapped, and he’s hurting and...”_

 

_Gast’s eyes widened, surprised and unnerved. All black and red. He thought of Grimoire, his wavy black hair and stoic, wind burnt face. And the heavy highwaymen coat he wore, with a stiff high cowl so starkly red. Gast swallowed hard._

  
_“The planet does not care for those upon it! A single life is nothing to Gaia-- for her to pay attention to the woes of one_ _…” Iflana did not seem to notice the tears that streaked her face. She grabbed Gast behind both ears, “I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you,” covered his cheeks in salted kisses between each pardon._

 

_She turned to face something that Gast could not see-- the emptiness of the room, or some memory; a ghost, or the planet itself. "I understand. It must be done." Her words melt into quiet, steady sobs. "You ask so much of me. I understand. I will fix this."_


	5. Bloody Hands

 

 

Veld startled as he flipped on the overhead light of his office. “You're still here?”

 

Professor Gast squint against the sickly fluorescent, leaned closer into his pool of lamplight.   “Oh, I'm sorry. Should I excuse myself to the employee lounge, camp out there? I’ll be sure to pass along your compliments when discovered in a restricted area shaking Mog-Pops out of the vending machines.”

 

“Ahh, fuck you. If I'd of known you were pulling an all nighter, I'd of brought you some coffee.”

 

Gast looked up from the stack of papers over the rim of his glasses. His eyes were bloodshot and heavy, but not for a moment without their curious warmth. “Really?”

 

Veld took a long swig from his paper coffee cup, drained its contents and tossed it into the wastebasket near the door. “Nope.”

 

Gast smiled. As much as his feelings for the ShinRa had twisted and decayed, there was something comforting in being among an old friend, a colleague; lost for hours in piles of research notes, in the idea of redemption through the same channels that begged forgiveness.

 

In another world, Veld could have been a professional football player. Big and stocky and tough as nails. In another world where he hadn’t blown out his knee playing for a semi professional team, in another world where he didn’t pass the ball for a gun and a navy blue suit. Gast watched Veld arrange his things for the day, rummage through a briefcase, flip through memos. Alternate timelines, parallel dimensions, the philosophy of it all-- all of those concepts that seemed to _belong_ to Lucrecia. Her enthusiasm, quantum mechanics, string theory. Lu at the whiteboard, scribbling furiously, cords of equations, ever more excited, gesturing so wildly she’d knock things over without pause or notice. If Vincent was near, he’d move with those electric reflexes, right whatever object she’d wronged. Gast tried to imagine Veld tossing a football instead of a paper cup. But Lucy was dead, and took all those other worlds with her.

 

Veld pulled open the blinds behind the desk, shooed Gast from the desk chair.

 

“How's your hand?” Veld asked as Gast shuffled the papers to the other side of the desk and sat again. Gast looked to his fingers to examine them, the bruised swelling obvious beneath the brace wrapping.

 

“Still attached to the rest of me.”

 

“You’re damn lucky, you know. You ever think about playing the lottery? I should send you downstairs to buy a ShinRa 777. Where’d you put your mask?”

 

“...I don't think he intended to hurt me.”

 

Veld snorted back a guffaw. “And everyone goes on about how _smart_ you were!”

 

“All of this data-- these notes-- it is as fascinating as it is disturbing. It seems it isn't the Jenova injections that have given him his physical abilities. From what I know, Jenova only copies what it merges with, it needs ‘code’ to make copies. There were only three sources of code within Sephiroth to replicate. Himself, of course, and then Lu and Vin--” Gast caught himself, uncomfortable. “--his parents. In that case, the injections on their own would do very little. It is the introduction of _mako_ as a third element; the combination of Jenova cells and mako that grant his super strength. He’s exhibiting physical traits of the _Lifestream_.”

 

Veld was writing something, but made it clear he was still listening. “Mmm. Like his hair and eyes turning all wonky? People exposed to excessive amounts of mako don’t exhibit those changes. Even those who die from mako poisoning.”

 

“Precisely. The Jenova in him duplicates his parents and manifests in some strange physical traits from the mako. But from everything I’m seeing here… what I know… the implications of this are alarming.”

 

“A six year old who can accidentally remove limbs? You don't say!”

 

Gast frowned deeply. “No. A _six year old_.”

 

“Oh no. No no no. _No_ , Gast. Don't do this. That thing is a killing machine. You haven't seen it in action. He's a beast!”

 

“If my assessment is correct-- and I am confident that it is-- Sephiroth’s _body_ is abnormal as a result of the injections. His mind is not. That's a little kid! The psychological conditions that Hojo is subjecting him to will be disastrous. This cannot continue.”

 

Veld had paused his writing, looked up at Gast as if something had died under his nose.

 

“Do you know what else replicates itself genetically? _Mental illness_. And if the Jenova in him favors Vincent’s DNA…” Gast shuffled through the paperwork, chose a manilla folder labeled _G. Valentine_ and thumbed through it. He pulled out an old discolored photograph of Vincent as a child, tossed it across the desk to Veld. His search through the other folders produced a polaroid of Sephiroth. He lay the pictures side by side, tapped at them with agitation. Aside from their coloration and age of the photos, the boys could have been the same person.  “Just _look_ at him.”

 

“Oh _fuck me_ ,” Gast groaned, rubbed at his forehead with his knuckles. “It's the Berserker 2.0.”

 

“Hojo is throwing gasoline all over the ground with a fire raging just beneath. He may be able to control Sephiroth now, but how long will that last? He won’t be a child forever. What is the point of a weapon that cannot be aimed?”

 

“Hojo _has_ to know this. There is no way he can’t… right?”

 

Gast sighed. “Once, I would have been able to answer that. Hojo was my closest friend in all the world. Truth is, I don’t know him. I don’t think I ever did. In all of this material you brought me-- and thank you, by the way-- there is not a single mention of his genetics. Bloody odd, wouldn't you say?”

 

“Not really, thinking of this all as the game it is. The Executives don’t care about anything other than results. And hey-- I did what I could. Those are the Science Department’s documents. Hojo has his own. There is a lot I’ll do for you here, but there’s a line and--”

 

“No doubt. I don’t think he’s trying to keep the knowledge of Sephiroth’s paternity simply from his staff.  I think he’s trying to keep it from _himself._ How long until Hojo returns? It isn’t too late, but we need to act now. Research has constantly shown that a child’s personality and psychological foundation isn’t solidified until around age six. You get me in with him. As much as you can. There still may be--”

 

Veld was losing his patience. “--What the hell are you talking about? That kid is a death machine; nothing more! If you wanted to stop this, you should have stuck around and made sure it never got to this point! Sephiroth has been raised, if you want to call it that, in a fucking metal box. No parents, no… love, no…  there is nothing human about him! ShinRa wanted a weapon, Hojo delivered! The whole thing is tragic, and I get that you feel guilty, and you fucking _should_ but--”

 

“ _Snowboarding_ ,” Gast sliced, his own annoyance bubbling. “Johnny X and the… the… the double cork!”

 

“What the _fuck_ are you talking about?!”

 

“He’s a _person_ , Veld! You have to trust me! I spent all of this time convinced he was _not._ I thought the same things you did, hell, I almost killed him myself! But the reality of what we have here is crystal clear. That’s Vincent and Lucy’s baby boy! He’s still in there-- whatever is human in him-- I touched him for a split second and he almost took my arm off. It wasn't because he was taught to, it was because he was _scared_. Confused! He’s a _child_ , Veld, not a monster. But he absolutely will become a monster if Hojo and the ShinRa continue this… abuse!”

 

“And what are you going to do? Go tell the executives they can’t have their silver haired angel of death?”

 

“No. I’m not sure what to do long term, but it has to start now. I need to see him again.”

 

Veld sighed, angry and defeated. “Look. Faremis. I already risked my job-- hell, my _life_ , breaking you in there. Bringing you these files. Not putting a bullet in your head the second you showed up on my goddam doorstep. How far are you wanting me to go? ShinRa is the most powerful entity on the planet, and they are hell bent on Sephiroth serving a specific purpose. You can’t just barge in here and change everything!”

 

“No. But I can change something. Somehow. If I can keep that flicker of humanity from going out...”

 

“This is crazy!”

 

Gast stood up, clenched his wounded hand. “This is the _right_ thing! There is still time!”

 

Veld stood too, unable to let a challenge, even an unnamed one, slip by. “You want to do something about the mess you made?! Good. You should! But you are on your own!”

 

“Veld, I _need_ you! Just a little longer-- I need you to get me in with him, I need to analyze, gather data, formulate a plan… and then I go home, and I come back, on my own, nothing to do with you. Nobody knows we ever crossed paths but your Turks.”

 

“My entire life is invested into running security for the ShinRa. I am the head of the D.A.R! I hate Hojo. And I’m not too happy what the ShinRa has become. And god -fuck- that’s _Vincent’s_ boy. But think about what you are asking me to do! Sephiroth is the priority here! Come back and fix things from the outside in, by all means. But you cannot bust in here, on my watch, and fuck with the core of the ShinRa!  Get fucked. Go wash the blood off your hands somewhere else!”

 

The photo of Veld’s daughter still lay face down on the desk. Gast picked up the frame, flipped it over and set it dramatically atop the pictures of Vincent and Sephiroth. Veld glanced down into the eyes of his daughter’s photograph, into her sweet smiling face and so many freckles. 

 

Veld was quiet for a long while, perhaps considering another world, some other reality; one where Vincent looked at Felicia's freckled face through observation glass and saw only a beast. “I fucking hate you. Get your coward, traitor ass up. C’mon.”

 

Gast wore a look of suspicious concern. ‘Where are you taking me?”

 

“To the pit.”

  
  



	6. Was

 

 

 

Sephiroth’s eyes were tightly closed. He looked even smaller than he had in his bed; tiny against a backdrop of stainless steel walls and tile,  against glaring lights that cast unholy halos on everything they touched. He held a sword twice his length, thin and cruel and curved. Sephiroth stood motionless as the creature across the room charged him. He did not move until it was close enough to disturb the air around him with its lunging force; until stray wisps of silver fluttered on his cheeks. His lips were moving, soundless words and unidentifiable from distance.

 

He opened his eyes the moment his blade began its upward arc, cleaved the beast diagonally into two, erupted into a crescent spray of scarlet. Sephiroth wiped at the spatter on his face, dragged his forearm across his cheekbone from elbow to wrist, left a bloody smear.  

 

Gast turned away from the observation window to face Veld, whose focus was firmly on his own feet. Gast frowned deeply. “Was that a… dog?”  

 

“ _Was_.” Veld did not look up. He had been silent the whole way up to the observation deck of the Pit, and for most of the journey was unsure if he’d rather have Gast participate in or watch the training. The Pit was the size of a tennis court, glass and metal and machine. Two entrances flanked the chamber, airlocks on either side. A trapdoor in the floor retract to clear space for a lift, a mechanism to deliver whatever training partner had been chosen for Sephiroth. It never went back down occupied.

 

“Remember that report you made about reactors and the effects of mako spills on local wildlife?”

 

“The one that almost cost me my job?”

 

“That’s the one.”

 

“Hojo is mutating animals on purpose. Why not?” Gast turned again to the window, looked down onto Sephiroth below. He swung the blade with one hand, cut an idle ‘x’ in the air. The sound of machinery humming to life shifted their attention away from the conversation. An artificial, monotone female voice bled from all speakers.

 

“Sequence two. Engaging.”    

 

The panels of the trapdoor slid apart to allow the lift through, raising up to reveal two more of what _was_. In a previous existence they had been fighting dogs bought from some sector slumlord, but mako exposure had doubled their size; starvation had cost them their minds. They were covered in bulging growths, wild eyed and ravenous. Both of the dogs smashed against the gate of the lift when they saw Sephiroth, biting and snarling at the bars and each other. They were mad; sick and feral. Sephiroth took a small step back, readied his sword.

 

Kill or be killed. Consume or be eaten. This was the law of the natural world, and nobody knew this more than Gast. The cycle of life and death, the beautiful give and take of of a symbiotic systems, the elegance of natural balance. There was nothing natural at play here, no equilibrium. Mutated creatures, human or animal and all the same anyway, distorted and perverted into _was._

 

Sephiroth moved with impressive speed, though he retained an element of childish clumsiness. He had retreat to the opposite side of the enclosure, found safety in the defenses of a corner. One of the dogs lunged with snapping teeth and ropes of saliva. Its head hit the wall, after a pass of silver, left gruesome graffiti.

 

Veld was watching from the side of his eye, arms still folded, head down. “Still think that’s just some kid?”

 

“I never said he was just some--”

 

The other dog found an opening, rushed Sephiroth and dodged the swing of his blade. It knocked the boy onto his back, went for his throat. The sword clamored to the floor. Sephiroth pulled his knees to his chest and lashed out with both legs. It was enough to send the beast back several yards, enough to allow Sephiroth to flip onto his front and push himself up. The dog had circled, blocked access to the blade.

 

Gast moved closer to the glass, looked down at the boy and monster below. The dog snapped and snarled, foaming spittle. Sephiroth made a dive for his sword, but instead almost caught a forearm full of teeth. For a moment, Gast thought the boy looked afraid.

 

“Stop this!” Gast couldn’t look away from the window at the scene below, both palms against the glass. His shout had caught Sephiroth’s attention, lift his eyes upward, a look of confusion and surprise on his sweet bloody face. And recognition. Sephiroth stared up at Gast, snagged against something familiar even through the medical mask.  

 

The dog mount him from behind, clamped its jaws into the crook of Sephiroth’s neck and shoulder. Both fighters went down in a blur of movement, fur and teeth and silver.

 

“Oh fuck me!” Veld straightened with reflexes befitting a Turk, a frantic survey of their surroundings. An alarm sounded, shrill and warning.

 

The dog shook the little boy mercilessly, a super solider turned ragdoll. Tendrils of opaque white smoke began to crawl down the walls from the corners of the room, fogged the glass walls. Sephiroth’s eyes were tightly closed, his fingers curled into hopeless fists. “Fi…” his voice was a fearful, stuttering squeak, “fi-fi-fii…”

 

Gast’s mouth had fallen open behind his mask, his brow against the glass.

 

“ _Firaga_!!”

 

The dog was consumed by an eruption of hungry flames, a crumbling pile of charred flesh and ash and the stench of burnt hair. Sephiroth stood, cloudy behind the smoke from the vents of the Pit as well as his flame spell. The skin of his neck was red and wet, pebbled like raw hamburger where the dog’s teeth had opened him. Coils of his silver hair turned scarlet, stuck against the wound. His arms and legs shook and wobbled, mako eyes upward and fixed onto Gast.

 

Sephiroth’s knees hit the floor first, followed by the rest of him. His fluffy white lashes fluttered shut and lips parted, his little piano fingers uncurling against the bloody tile.


	7. Just a...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've been reading my stuff for any length of time, you should know by now that it gets pretty dark. A heads up to those who may not be as familiar. Some disturbing content in this chapter. I lost a subscriber to this story within a few hours of posting this, so take that warning as you will. I don't add things for shock value, or simply because I feel like it. What is included in my stories is included for a reason. If they aren't for you, by all means, I hope you find something you love elsewhere. 
> 
> It's _supposed_ to be upsetting. If I made you feel something, good or bad, it means I did my job as a writer.
> 
> \--Calamity

 

“...Vincent?”

 

Even her voice had an inextinguishable light in it, sweet and sad with the hint of some strange melody. A lullaby maybe, or a music box.

 

He did not want to see her. But before he could form the words to banish her, he had forgotten why. The nothingness of sleep was a comfort he clung to, dark and deep and _safe_. Instead, he rolled onto his side, lift the tangle of blankets and sheets in hope the cold would force him awake.

 

Lucrecia loomed over him, stood at his bedside in her sleeveless nightgown, white as the snow that lay in drifts against the windows. When she bent to press her lips against his temple, when she brushed away a coil of black from his brow, when she breathed his name again across his ear, he opened his eyes.

 

She sat herself slowly next to him on the bed, smiled in that sweet sad way.

 

Vincent fought against the heaviness in his limbs and pushed himself up onto an elbow, tried to focus on her form blurred by darkness. “I’m sorry to wake you,” she kissed him again, this time on the cheek, “you were having a bad dream.”

 

He sat up completely, rubbed vigorously at his eyes with the heels of his hands. _A bad dream. A nightmare._ Vincent held his hands up, stared at the left one. He flipped them front to back, opened and closed his fist. _His_ fist, flesh and bone, tendons and skin. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, pushed himself forward so forcefully he almost went face first into the floor. Vincent caught himself against the edge of the dresser, snapped his chin up to face the ornately framed mirror just above. His irises were the same warm mahogany they had always been, and the bare skin of his chest was slick and smooth. No gruesome, wormy scars, no ShinRa logo. No bullet hole.

 

“...Vincent?” Lucrecia struggled to stand with a look of concern that had overtaken her face. He spun to face her, grabbed her by the shoulders. His hands cuffed her biceps, slid down her arms and lingered around her wrists as he looked her over, something frantic on his face. _A bad dream._ Vincent dropped her hands, put one of his against the small of her back and the other on the swell of her middle. He pushed the side of his face against her belly, a surge of reassurance when Sephiroth thumped against his ear. He hugged her perhaps tighter than he should have and nuzzled against her, his heart thrashing so hard it hurt. 

 

Lucrecia draped her fingers atop his head, began to stroke his hair but he stood quickly, broke away from her to lunge for his gun.

 

“Vincent! What are you--”

 

“--We have to get out of here. _Now._ Right now.”

 

Lucrecia’s eyes went wide in the quiet dark. “What!? Why?! Stop! Stop it, calm down!” She moved quickly to block the doorway, raised both hands in protest.

 

He tried to remember where it had all started, or ended, or started again. Vincent looked to the gun in his hand, then to Lucrecia. His eyes had been given enough time to adjust to the darkness, shake off the ribbons of sleep. She looked different, no longer the gaunt crumbling thing he remembered. Her face was full, a healthy glow in the moonlight. Despite her sleepy frown, she looked happy and healthy, _safe._

 

“Where are you going? It’s the middle of the night, you’re in your underwear--”

 

Vincent shouldered past her, his brisk pace a determined march through the mansion. Lucrecia trailed after him, slowed by the shape of third-trimester. Vincent did not hesitate outside of the door on the opposite end of the hallway, bashed upwards against it with enough force to lift it from its hinges.

 

He had expected the room to be empty, the door to the basement ajar. Instead, Hojo shot up in his bed, a hand fluttering at his nightstand in search for his glasses. Vincent aimed the pistol, closed one eye.

 

“ _Vincent_!!” Lucrecia was doing her best to dash forward, grabbed at the crook of his elbow when she arrived at his side, tugged and pulled at him.

 

“What the hell is this?!” Hojo scoot back in the bed, pressed his back against the headboard, tried to make sense of the blurred shapes around him. “Put that thing down this instant, you psychopath!”

 

Vincent flexed, his arms taunt and resistant against Lucrecia’s tugging, braced his lower half, ready to fire. “Get back, Lucy. This won't be a fatal shot, just a debilitating one. The rest I do, I don't want you to see.”

 

Hojo’s fingertips found his glasses, brought them to his flustered, angry face. “Get control of your husband instead!”

 

Vincent blinked, a wash of confusion. Hojo’s hands were still raised, the universal gesture of surrender, the one that hadn’t mattered when Hojo put a bullet into his lungs. Vincent glanced to Hojo’s left hand, a search for a glint of metal, the tell of a wedding band. The scientist’s fingers were bare.

 

“I’m _trying_ ,” Lucrecia snapped, leveraging the entirety of her weight against Vincent’s arm. “Vincent, _please_!”

 

Vincent felt a smear of wet streak down his cheek, then another. Teardrops pattered the worn wooden floor beneath him.

 

Gast had appeared in the doorway in his blue and white striped pajamas.  His movements were calmer and more sure than Lucrecia’s, but edged with an alarmed caution. He stepped slowly to Vincent, put a hand on his bare shoulder, gentle and unsure. “What in Gaia are you doing, boy?! What’s going on here?”

 

Lucrecia answered instead. “I got up to use the bathroom. When I came back, he was saying… terrible things… thrashing, calling out to me and I…” her soft doe eyes were ripe with fear and worry as she fixed them on her Turk. “I woke him. He just charged in here and…”

 

Gast cut her off, kept his voice low and soft, some secret. “...Contact Veld.”

 

Lucrecia let her gaze linger on Vincent a moment before she nodded and released his elbow, moved to scurry from the room. Vincent’s reaction was precise; he hooked her under the arms and pulled her against his chest with one arm, kept the other extended, gun trained on Hojo.

 

“ _No!_! Stay… with…”

 

Vincent looked to Hojo, his expression of surprise and annoyance and fear; to Gast with his kind warm face and deep, grandfatherly frown. And to Lucy, who did not struggle against him, who instead held gently onto his forearm, held a frightened, worried kiss against his wrist.

 

“...me.”

 

Vincent lowered the gun slowly, felt the entire room lighten in cautious relief. “I…” he could feel the heat and salt of tears on his face, did not care. “... _Sorry_. I’m... sorry.”

 

“Will you come with me? Please? Can we take a walk?” Lucrecia twist beneath his arm, positioned herself sideways against him, wrapped her arms around his waist-- a gentle pull to the door. She mouthed something to Gast. Vincent nodded meekly after a while, murmured another apology.

 

Lucrecia lead him silently back through the hallway, back to the bedroom, guided him to sit atop the bed. She pried his fingers away from the grip of his gun one at a time, set it atop the dresser as if it had been some foul thing. When she returned to him, she wiped at his tears with the ball of her thumb. He stared at nothing. “My stoic Turk. What in the world were you dreaming about that would…”

 

Vincent lift his face to her, more tears carved shimmering trails down his cheeks, along the sides of his nose, hung off his chin. “He _hurt_ you… hurt Sep--” he paused, the vacant, lost look on his face distorting into some trauma. _Just a nightmare._ “He’s… _mine_ , right?”

 

Lucrecia grabbed his hands, pushed them against her middle. “What is the _matter_ with you? Of _course_ he is! Vincent. Listen to me. Everything is okay, everyone is safe. Your baby is _yours_ , and he is right where you put him. Nobody hurt us.”

 

His expression turned accusatory. “You haven’t… _done_ anything to him… experiments or… that fucking monster Jenova or… have you?”

 

“Is that what you were dreaming about?” She let him go, moved to the dresser and began to rummage for a shirt. “No, Vincent. I have not done anything to him. Well. Depends on if you consider eating an entire box of Chocobo Cheezies an infliction on him or me.” When she pulled out a black long sleeved thermal shirt and pair of dark jeans, his eyes narrowed. “Of that, I fully admit my guilt.” She was smiling softly when she turned to face him, but it did little to hide her uneasiness. Lucrecia handed him the clothing, chewed a knuckle as he dressed.

 

The air outside was still and crisp, their breath unfurling in white plumes as they walked slowly through the mansion’s garden, all of the dead things there capped with snow. The sky was cloudless, silvery and bright in the light of the full moon. The two walked slowly, arm in arm, hand in hand and silent. The surface of the snow crunched beneath their steps, sometimes a gust of wind would tousle their hair. Lucrecia stopped walking when they reached the ancient weeping willow,  turned to face him. “Are you feeling better?”

 

Vincent said nothing.

 

“My stoic, cold hearted boy.” She touched his cheek. “I’ve never seen you cry. I didn't even think you could. What is hurting you so badly? I know you’d never admit it, but I see how anxious you are, what it's doing to you. I’m nervous too. You don’t have to leave the Turks if you don’t want to, we’ve been over this. That hasn’t changed. Whatever is best, we will find a way. We’ll make it work, as long as we’re together. Vincent… I’m sorry if you didn’t want this, if you're having second thoughts…”

 

“ _No_.” Once, he had told her he did not want children with the same cryogenic rigor, something that he had meant to the core of his being when he had said it. But he could not remember when he had said so, or even felt that way. _Just a bad dream._ “It isn’t… that. I do. I _do_ want him. You. I love you. And him. I… I’m scared. That something… bad will happen or... ” He lift his eyes to her, half hidden behind a curtain of wavy black. “That I’ll _hurt_ you.”

 

She almost laughed. “You’d _never_ hurt me. Or our baby. I know that. Yes, you have struggles I may never understand; but those dark things in your head… they aren’t _you_. That chaos in your mind… it’s not a death sentence. And you shouldn’t face it alone. Look how far you've come!” Her voice was cheerful, optimism wound around an uglier core.

 

Vincent’s voice cracked. A little lost thing. “I don’t want to be a Turk. Anymore. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.”

 

_I don’t want to hurt anymore. _

 

“Then we talk to Veld, and we find a way.” Her optimism gave way to determination.  “I believe in you, and I support you. Whatever you need.”

 

He was crying again, openly blubbering through his rambling thoughts. “If something happened to you because of me, because of something I’ve done-- I’ve done a _lot_ of shit Lucy and I--”

 

“--Shhh, shh. Look at me.” Lucrecia took both of his cheeks between her hands. She had never seen him like this, didn’t recognize the mess of a man who stood before her. “You are no monster, Vincent. And if you have monsters in your past, in your mind, in your heart... we fight them together. You’d _never_ hurt me. I know it. I trust it. I trust _you_. You aren’t what you were before. You are a good, loyal, kind person, a wonderful husband, and you will be an amazing father.”

 

Lucrecia stood on her toes, used his shoulders to pull herself up to brush her lips against his. She broke away quickly and took a timid step back from him, her brows knit. She touched her lower lip, hesitant and uneasy. “Why… are you so… _cold_?”

 

A flicker of gold, a gasp in the biting chill.

 

Vincent looked down, the metal that made up his left arm buried to the elbow in her belly.

 

Lucrecia’s eyes went wide, wider, pain and shock and betrayal. The pink quickly drained from her cheeks, her hands falling away from his shoulders. Vincent jerked his arm backward, took a fistfull of baby and with it. Scarlet spattered the snow, bored red holes, sent up coils of steam. 

 

She fell to her knees when he dropped them both, the wind beating the tattered bottom of his father’s crimson cloak at the backs of his boots, ribbons of blood dribbling from metal fingers.

 

Vincent’s eyes snapped open as his whole body lurched, as he gasped so audibly it shook the box.

 

_Just a bad dream. Just a nightmare. Just a..._

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	8. Injuries

“I... see.”

 

There was a long, lingering, rotten silence. Contemplative. And even removed from all physicality, from expressions or gestures over the separation of a phone call, Hojo’s anger was obvious. “How did this occur?”

 

“We aren’t entirely sure Professor. We were running 17762-B, per your instructions. The first specimen was destroyed in eleven seconds. The second in eight. Something seemed to distract him. He... froze.” The lab assistant thumbed through papers, a frantic search for more relevant information. _He froze_ was clearly not a satisfactory answer.

 

It was cause for most to be concerned when their superiors yelled, cursed. It was not volume or vulgarity those near Hojo worried over. It was his silence. When Hojo did not respond, the tech was desperate to fill it. “He did eventually conjure a second tier fire manifestation, enough to halt the attack. We released halothane into the chamber to retrieve him. The third specimen was destroyed.”

 

“You should have kept it. A specimen that best Sephiroth is worth further examination.” Hojo thought of the things he’d like to do to the dog, how long he could keep it alive, how much he could hurt it. Pieces floating in formaldehyde, peeling flesh. A transfer of pain-- not an end to it. “What have you administered for pain?”

 

“Morphine.”

 

“Stop it immediately.”

 

“But--”

 

“Switch to an NSAID.”

 

“That won’t be sufficient, Professor. His injury is…”

 

“It is _plenty_ . Pain is the body’s response to harmful stimuli. It lets you know you have done something _wrong_. Pain will teach him to not make such a novice mistake again.”

 

Hojo knew enough about pain, hurt of a deeper, yawning ache. “Let me speak to him. Now.”

 

“He’s sleeping.”

 

Hojo’s voice was measured, patient, with the cruel precision of a scalpel. “Not if you _wake him up_.”

 

The scientist wound his finger through the phone cord, umbilical. He squeezed it in his fist as he waited, wondered what to say.  He thought of the first time Sephiroth had ever been injured. It was not during a training scenario. It was running. The toddler had recently learned to walk, enjoyed wobbling about the laboratory, grabbing at the edges of metal tables, the hems of lab coats. Sephiroth had seen Hojo standing at a terminal, broke into a waddling, excited run. The baby had been smiling, drool all over his fat little cheeks, arms outstretched and reaching enthusiastically for Hojo. Until he tripped on the edge of a mat, went face first into the corner of a steel cabinet.

 

Hojo had lurched forward, made a move to peel boy off the floor, to hold him, rock him, comfort him. But he froze when Sephiroth looked up, shocked and confused, a small gash across his left eyebrow. In the bright fluorescent lights of the laboratory, the little boy’s dark mahogany eyes looked crimson.

 

Hojo simply turned away. Sephiroth’s wailing had silenced the entire lab, every set of nervous eyes transfixed on the two. “Get him out of here,” Hojo had spat and stormed off.

 

But now Sephiroth’s eyes were the color of mako, not the color of a lie that had cost so very much, festered so deeply. Hojo wished he had been there now, to hold Sephiroth and comfort him in the anonymity of his sleep; as much as he was glad he wasn’t.

 

“Uh… Professor?”  The returning voice on the other line was nervous, “we can’t. His vitals are stable but… I can call you when the morphine wears off. Will I reach you at the same place?”

 

Hojo was desperately relieved by the interruption to his thoughts. “For a time. I’m aborting this project. I will complete what is necessary and I will return early. You said Sephiroth seemed “distracted.” Was anything off?”

 

“Not that I know of, Professor.”

 

Hojo narrowed his eyes. “Transfer me to Mr. Dragoon.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
†††

 

 

 

 

Veld swiped the handset off the phone cradle, smashed it between his shoulder and his ear. “Thiiiiisisveld.”

 

“I want all the footage from the training arena and adjoining lab spaces pulled.”

 

Veld recoiled from the sound of Hojo’s sharp voice, winced away the unpleasantness that had crashed against his ear. “Oh, I’m fine. Thanks so much for asking. How is the weather there? It’s been beautiful here, sunny, warm.”

 

“Don’t waste my time. I know you’re aware there was an incident. Pull the tapes. I hear Sephiroth was distracted by something. I want to know what it was.”

 

 _Fuck_ . Veld spun his chair half way around, looked out the large window behind his desk and the rain that spattered against it.  “That isn’t necessary. It was _me_ . _I_ was up there.”

 

Hojo’s voice increased in cadence and volume as he spoke.  “What?! Why?! That is unauthorized space to you, full of delicate equipment worth more than your life. Nobody is to enter the observation deck but me! What were you doing in there?!”  

 

“I heard you nerds in the Science Department feed him by throwing slabs of raw meat into his kennel. Wanted to see.”

 

Hojo made a noise of disgust.

 

“Hey, I was hungry. Free steaks.”

 

“I am glad to hear how seriously you take this incident, Dragoon. It will provide much needed insight to the board of directors when I recommend disciplinary action against you.”

 

“For fuck’s sake, Hojo, I was _joking_. That poor kid almost had his head ripped off by a tumor with rabies and I had to see it. It was awful-- trying for a little levity here.”

 

“Says the man who smashes in faces with an electric rod in exchange for a tacky blue suit. Spare me your feigned concern. Are all Turks as smug and stupid as they are self righteous?”    

 

Veld caught the insult meant for another, would have repaid Hojo for it with a fist to the teeth if they had been face to face. He didn’t care if Hojo thought he was stupid; in fact, that was to his benefit. Veld had long learned to play his intelligence and resolve close to his chest, his crass and sarcastic reputation as much a tool as a personality. A tactic he had trained in Vincent.

 

 

 

_Veld tossed a handful of sunflower seeds into his mouth, raked his gaze up and down Vincent. Chewing seeds wasn’t the same as smoking, but it gave him something to do now that his baby had come and smoking was off limits. “You’re shaping up to be a decent Turk. I’ve never seen anyone handle a gun like you.” Veld narrowed his eyes, his teeth and tongue working behind closed lips. He pulled out a few empty shells, dropped them on his desk._

 

_Vincent sat stick straight, his hands folded neatly in his lap. The young man was so handsome Veld found it obnoxious._

 

_“You did better than I thought you would on our last operation. Everyone thinks you’re stupid. Are you?”_

 

_“Yes. Sir.”_

 

_“That’s the right answer.” Veld wiggled his fingers, wished for a marlboro between them. “Run through this scenario with me. You bust into a mythril dealer’s apartment; he’s head of a smuggling syndicate and has been taking out rivals, causing casualties. Dangerous mother fucker. I want him for questioning, so you can’t kill him. Want to know where he gets his shit. No way he’s going nicely. Guy’s eating dinner with his family. He’s armed to the teeth. Weapons everywhere. You come busting in with your beautiful hair,” Veld pried another shell from between his lips, “an’ your fancy suit. He knows exactly who you are and he’s not too happy to see you. How long do you spend styling your damn hair? You… straighten it, arrange it to look all… what? ”_

 

_Vincent shift slightly in his seat, but his expression did not change. “Yes, sir.”_

 

_“Why.” Veld said ‘why’ as an slight, not a question._

 

_“You said that I looked… feral, sir.”_

 

_Veld laughed, a great guffaw. “You did. Now you look like an underwear model.”_

 

_Vincent was as still and stone faced as ever. “I don’t want to disappoint you.”_

 

_The comment made Veld sad, which made him uncomfortable. For a moment, he looked away, grabbed more seeds. “So you kick in the door, and this guy and his wife and his little girl are all sitting at the table. He isn’t going anywhere without a fight. What do you do?”_

 

_“Immobilize him.”_

 

_“Wrong. While you're busy trying to get him off the ground, wife puts a knife in your neck. What do you do?”_

 

_Vincent stared blankly, a statue._

 

 _“You don’t want to disappoint me?_ _Think like a Turk_ _. You grab that little girl, and shove your gun against the back of her head.”_

 

_That was enough to force a change of expression, slight as it was. “Sir… didn't you just... don't you have a daughter? What if…”_

 

_Veld leaned in over his fist on the desk. “I’d do any goddamn thing you told me to do.”_

 

_Vincent narrowed his eyes, a stir behind the facade. “The child had nothing to do with its father’s actions. Why would I traumatize a little girl because of her parents choices?”_

 

_“You think shooting her father in front of her, shit, even in the knee, isn’t traumatic? How about growing up in that sort of home? Surrounded by violence and death, always on the run. That’s not traumatic? You’ve got a strange sense of morals for someone who was about to be locked up and executed for committing a fucking massacre.”_

 

_The young Turk’s eyes darkened, and his brow creased; the offense and conflict clear on his face. Even when he emoted, he didn't look entirely human, something made of marble, something other. ”They were bad people.”_

 

_“And you’re not?”_

 

_“On the contrary, sir. I know what I am.”_

 

 _“Oh for fuck's sake. 'They were bad people.' What a bunch of tired, trite bullshit. Do you really think them being 'bad' made it okay? And don't fuck with me, kid. They weren't bad people, they were people-people and you making excuses doesn't change the fact you're a goddamned murderer._ _I’ve killed far more people than you have. What does that make me?”_

 

_“You’re a Turk. You kill gang leaders, and dons and--”_

 

_“It’s not that simple. It’s not binary.”_

 

_Vincent was showing his agitation, a struggle against uncomfortable concepts. “And what if he doesn’t care? Your mythril dealer. I won’t harm a child.”_

 

 _“The honorable mass murderer with perfect hair,” Veld sighed. “Look. Vincent. Sure, there is a possibility he’d use the opportunity to save himself, but these are_ _people_ _. People are fucking complicated, but they are predictable. And more often than not, the way to a man’s heart is through his balls.”_

 

_Vincent’s face had returned to its default, smooth and flat._

 

_“Speaking of balls…” Veld spit a chewed sunflower seed at Vincent’s chest. “Quit fucking my interns.”_

 

 

 

 

Veld swapped the handset of the phone to the other shoulder. “All? Smug and stupid _and_ self-righteous? Hmm. Nope,” he forced himself to smile, knew the physical act of it would be projected in his voice even if the sentiment was empty. His tone was loaded, ripe. _I know something you don’t want me to know_ .  “Only the _dead_ ones.”

 

“I will ask you once more what you were doing on the observation deck, and then my patience for you will be spent.”

 

“My _job_ , Professor. I am head of of the D.A.R. It is my duty to assure the security of ShinRa and ShinRa’s assets. As much as you clearly think of Sephiroth as _yours,_ ” Veld released the closest thing to his fist he could over the phone “he is _not_.” He let his barb settle, then pulled it back. “Sephiroth belongs to ShinRa. I was simply ensuring your techs didn’t kill him. You weren’t there to supervise. I was.”

 

“And you proved nothing but a distraction. He could have been killed!”

 

“With all due _respect_ , Professor, You’re the one putting him in a box with a bunch of monsters.”

 

“That scenario was one he could have completed at age four! It was not meant as a challenge, but as continuity of regiment! I specifically chose these scenarios for their simplicity! You overstepped your authority, and are completely out of your jurisdiction. The Turks have no business in the laboratory!”

 

“I understand your perspective, Professor.” Veld glanced to his watch. Hojo was quiet for a moment, an awkward rustling.

 

“I want the security tapes pulled. Have them ready for me to review by the time I return.”

 

“I told you, that isn’t necessary--”

 

“--Sephiroth said he saw _something,"_ Hojo bluffed, _"_ He didn’t say he saw _you_.”

 

“I know the procedures. Face and hair covered, all that. How could he know who I was?”

 

Hojo grinned against the mouthpiece of his phone. “Have the tapes ready, Dragoon. Or come up with a _really_ good reason why they aren’t for the board.”

 

Veld sighed after the other line went silent, drummed his fingertips against his desk and pulled out a marlboro.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	9. Promise

Sephiroth could feel himself shivering, an involuntary shake through his limbs. He clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering, pulled his blanket tighter around himself. Even his hair follicles seemed to ache. His gut churned, threatened to make him sick even though he hadn’t eaten.

 

It was the pain that caused him to tremble, pulses of hurt salty, sharp and deep. The involuntary movements only served to make it feel worse, scratchy bandages and medical tape against tight, dry stitches. He heard the metal door open behind him, closed his eyes as tightly as possible. His ability to heal rapidly was something everyone in the Science Department paid close attention to; but none of them seemed interested in just how much it hurt.

 

The last time someone had come into the room, it was to change a bag of saline; before that, someone had come to disconnect and wheel out the other IV stand, the mechanical one with the clear box and the locks. That’s when the pain had begun, unrelenting surges that knocked the thoughts out of his mind and scattered them so far he couldn’t collect them again if he had wanted to. He did not. He knew what they were; failure, disappointment. The knowledge Professor Hojo had not been present to see it would have brought some comfort if the pain hadn’t been so severe; Hojo would have looked at him with an expression of annoyance and disgust, turned away from him to scribble on his ever present clipboard. And that… that would have hurt most of all.

 

Sephiroth made no attempt to see who was behind him or what they were doing. He could feel them, their presence, looming and motionless. Movement and then… the weight of another blanket, a seeping warmth. Whoever it was had turned back to the door, footsteps against tile narrated that, and the door shut once again.

 

The next time the presence reappeared, Sephiroth wondered how long it had been. It seemed like almost no time at all had passed; a contrast to the hours and hours that elapsed with nobody and nothing. What struck him even more than the person’s return, is when it spoke.

 

“I’m going to touch your arm. Just for a few seconds.”

 

Sephiroth opened his eyes, forced himself to turn onto his back, to look up at the person over him blurred by the harsh lights.

 

“I promised I wouldn’t without your permission, remember? May I?”

 

Sephiroth blinked, suspicious, resentful.

 

The man held up a thin syringe, turned it in the light. “This will help. It’s medicine. For pain.”

 

Sephiroth winced as he pushed and wiggled himself upward, sat. He extended his hand, tucked his fingers over the edge of the man’s medical mask and pulled it slowly down to reveal the face beneath. Gast smiled softly, his upper lip obscured by the bristles of his mustache, deepened the faint lines at the corners of his eyes.

 

Sephiroth stared blankly at the scientist, astounded by a face that was not Hojo’s or his own. He had seen other faces as they passed by in the distance, President ShinRa or the other executives as they spoke to Hojo, Veld or once, Tseng. But never up close. His impossibly green eyes were unblinking, unmoving. Gast let him look as long as he pleased.

 

Sephiroth finally swished his gaze to the syringe in Gast’s hand, expressionless. “Talk more.”

 

Gast surveyed the room, pulled a chair up along the bedside when he found it. “I’m sorry. I feel very badly that you were hurt.”

 

Sephiroth returned his attention back to Gast, looked at him as if he had sprouted an additional head. Someone other than Hojo speaking to him was strange enough; someone, anyone at all, expressing concern or sympathy for him was stranger still. Strange, and suspicious.

 

“Do you like fighting?”

 

The little boy started to shake his head, but the stitches and the bandages and the hurt in his neck and shoulder stopped him quickly.

 

Gast held up a finger. “No, not fighting. I bet I do know something you’d like.” He set the syringe onto the bed, fished around in the pocket of his labcoat and pulled out a VHS tape, still shiney in its cellophane. He held it up in display, wiggled it side to side for dramatic effect.

 

_Xtreme Snowboarding - Revenge of the Zolom_

 

Gast’s smile grew. “How’d I do? Good guess?”

 

Sephiroth went rigid, swiped for the tape and came away empty handed when Gast jerked it backward. “I will give you this… _if_ you let me give you that medicine. But I need to touch your arm to do it. It will be for a few seconds at most. You’ve already got an IV line in-- I just have to inject the medicine into that part there.”

 

Sephiroth nodded, small and timid.

 

Gast passed him the VHS tape, picked up the syringe off the bed. He turned Sephiroth’s elbow over, held the secondary access port steady and inject the morphine into it. When he finished, he raised both hands in the air, a silent and clear gesture of ending.

 

Gast leaned back into the chair, set his hands in his lap. “You fight with a katana. That is a difficult weapon to wield. Did you choose to use a blade yourself?”

 

When Sephiroth nodded, Gast startled. For a moment, he thought that the boy had began to bleed internally. The unnatural aquamarine of his irises began to darken, like drops of ink blooming in water.   Sephiroth’s eyes turned mahogany as he answered, the exact color of Vincent’s and Grimoire's before. The little boy spoke, but the words were not his. “I don’t want you to be like me. Speaking of… Sorry buddy, but you won’t ever even think about touching a gun.”

 

Gast involuntarily scoot back in his chair, tried to conceal the shock and awe that was sure to have displayed across his face. “...What did you say?”

 

When Sephiroth blinked, the color drained back behind his pupils, left only an eerie glowing green. He shrugged, nonchalant; picked at the cellophane around the tape’s box. “Turn it on.”

 

Gast kept his wild curiosity and crawling sense of concern restrained. “Yeah. Okay; after some questions. Just a few. Do you ever… _hear_ things? When nobody is around?”

 

“No.”

 

“Very good. Do you--”

 

“Turn on the movie.”

 

“Yes, I will. That fire spell, that was a pretty impressive. How long have you been training with materia?”

 

“I don’t like materia.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“I don’t _use_ materia.”

 

Gast arched a brow, leaned in. “But I saw you use firaga.”

 

Sephiroth shrugged again, annoyed. “ _No_ materia. It’s too _noisy_.”

 

“You never use materia? Then how…?”

 

Sephiroth rolled his eyes, shift slightly to face Gast. He lift his hand, palm out. The skin on his fingers turned unnaturally white, bloomed with tiny fractals of ice crystals.

 

Gast couldn’t help himself, exhaled his surprise. “Gods and Gaia, Shiva herself would be amazed.”

 

The frost on Sephiroth’s small hand recoiled back into his palm, and he shook out his wrist, shook away the sensation of biting cold. “Who is Shiva?”

 

“You don’t know who Shiva is?”

 

Sephiroth let his head sway side to side, white ringlets bouncing. The painkiller made his movements fluid; and sleepy. Gast frowned. All children knew the lore of the world; fables that explained the elements, stories of morality and consequence. But Sephiroth was not all children.

 

“She is one of the figures in a series of very old stories. I suppose you could think of her as the… goddess of snowboarding.”

 

Perhaps it was the mention of his favorite subject, or perhaps it was the warm, floating fuzz of the morphine. Whatever it was, Sephiroth smiled. When he smiled, bright curious eyes and a row of straight little teeth, he looked impish and spry; he looked like Lucy.

 

Gast stood, took the tape from Sephiroth and walked to the television set. He slid the cassette from it’s case, pushed it into the mouth of the VCR. His finger lingered over the power button, but he did not turn it on. “When you… when you were injured… you seemed to lose focus on your fight. Why?”

 

“I remember you.”

 

“From when I brought your dinner? My face was covered. How did you know it was me?”

 

“From before. Put on the movie.”

 

Gast blinked. “Before? Before when? What do you remember?”

 

Sephiroth’s eyes were half closed. He looked so small in the bed, surrounded by tubes and machines and colorless cold walls. He did not respond. Gast turned the power to the television on, pushed play on the VCR. He moved quietly to the door, but was stopped by a command when his fingers touched the lever.

 

“Stay.”

 

Gast looked through the tiny window cut away from the metal door, down the hallway to Veld. The Turk was checking and rechecking his watch, his body language the picture of impatience.

 

“I can’t.”

 

Sephiroth’s eyes were fixed on the television screen, but they were vacant, far away. “Come back. Do like you said with touching.”

 

“Do like…? Oh!” Gast smiled-- then frowned. “You mean make a promise?”

 

The little boy’s eyes were then closed, despite the excitement on the screen. “Make a promise. To come back. Talk about Shiva.”

 

Gast looked back down the hallway at Veld, squeezed the door handle. He thought of Iflana, waiting for him to return from this fool quest; he thought of Veld and his worried, thoughtful pacing. He thought of Lucy and her parallel timelines, her mischievous smile; of Hojo. And of Vincent with his guns and his dark, sad eyes; and his desperate wishes for his son to be nothing like him.

 

“Yeah. I promise.”  


	10. From Before

Veld tipped his chin to Gast from the other side of the hallway when he emerged, started to the security doors. Gast kept his head down, moved casually in the same direction. The area was full of people, lab assistants and technicians, all with their faces and hair covered. It filled Gast with a profound sense of loneliness. All these people had lives; histories, stories, memories. All of it meaningless and hidden away behind surgical blue, individuality swallowed by the mass of forced anonymity.

 

Veld swiped his keycard, turned to stop a passing nurse as the doors hissed open to inquire about Sephiroth’s condition. A clear maneuverer to close the gap between them. Gast kept his slow pace, walked past Veld and the nurse and out into the hallway beyond. Veld was quick to catch up, but they did not look at each other as they spoke.  

 

“Well?” Veld seemed as annoyed as he was impatient.

 

“Almost.” Gast shoved his hands in his pockets, wondered if Sephiroth had ever seen sunlight.

 

“What the hell almost?!”

 

“ _Almost._ I’ll go back tonight. The amount of rapport I have with him already is amazing, but I need a bit more time. I can’t just stroll in there and ask him to _lie_.”

 

“Of course not,” Veld baulked.

 

“It will be addressed. I have a good feeling about this.”

 

“ _Feeling_? Fuck you and your touchy-feely-bullshit.”

 

Gast glanced to Veld out of the side of his eye. “My touchy-feely-bullshit is going to save your skin. Do you kiss your daughter with that mouth?”

 

“Only after I thoroughly brush my teeth.”

 

They didn’t speak again until the doors of the elevator closed, jerked into motion.

 

“How is your wife?” Gast watched the ugly metal structures of Midgar’s upper plate shrink as they rose.

 

“She’s happy as can be, her and Felicia.” Veld shrugged. “Just wish it was with me.”

 

Gast frowned. He had liked Veld’s wife, a soft spoken woman; pretty in a quiet way; but she could wield sarcasm deadlier than any weapon. “I’m sorry to hear.”

 

“There was an incident. I was here-- should have been there. They could have been killed. There is a damn good reason Turks don’t have families, relationships. I could be a selfish prick about it but… ahh, it’s for the best, isn’t it?” Veld pushed the door open button rapidly even before they arrived, as if leaving the elevator meant leaving all being said. Gast took the hint.

 

“I’ll go back and see Sephiroth tonight, after his bedtime.”

 

“There is a staff change over around 24:00, good time to sneak you in.”

 

“I need you to get something for me, though. I need you to retrieve some books from the archives. I’ll write down which volumes to pull.”

 

“Sure. I’ll send Tseng down. What for?” Veld folded his arms.

 

Gast felt the inkling of a smile, but it crumbled away before it reached his face. “Because I made a promise.”

  
  
  
  
  
†††  
  
  


Gast made sure the hallway was clear before he opened the door to Sephiroth’s room. The overhead lights were off, a wash of dull ambient light seeping across the room from the faces of various monitors. Sephiroth was deeply asleep, his mouth open wide and his cheek slick with drool. Gast flipped on the bedside lamp, sat down in the chair.

 

“Sephiroth,” Gast almost touched his shoulder, caught himself. Instead, he whispered louder. “Hey,”

 

The little boy opened his sleepy, heavy eyes. He squint against the light, rubbed at his face.

 

“I came back just like I said I would.” Gast pulled off his mask and smiled a big smile; there was nothing false in it.

 

Sephiroth sat up and stared, squinted.

 

“I’m sorry to wake you up. Would you like me to leave?” Gast set the books he had brought onto the bedside table. Sephiroth shook his head with vigor. 

 

“Put on the movie.”

 

“Shh, keep your voice down. It’s very late. I brought you something even better. But I need your help. Its very important.”

 

Sephiroth sat up all the way.

 

“If Hojo--”

 

“-- _Professor”_ Sephiroth scolded.

 

“Right. Professor. I’m not sure how to…”

 

“You’re in _big_ trouble.”

 

Gast chuckled. “You’re right. I wasn’t supposed to be there.”

 

“You aren’t supposed to talk, either. Or have a face. Talk _more_.”

 

“Okay. Sure. I brought you--”

 

“If Professor finds out you broke the rules, I won’t see you again will I?”

 

Gast nodded, slow and somber. The little boy was more right than he’d ever know.

 

“Again, I’m really sorry that I distracted you. I feel so badly you were hurt. You said… that you remembered me. From 'before.' I’ve only just met you. What do you mean _before_?”

 

Sephiroth shrugged. And began to quietly sing, a small sweet voice.

 

_“Oh, lacking any nucleus, you do have a cell wall_

_You live in water, air, and soil, and anywhere at all_

_You reproduce by fission, and you do so very fast_

_And under harsh conditions in an endospore do last_

 

_For decomposing things that die, a saprophyte we need_

_But some are parasitic: on a living host will feed_

_For taking nitrogen from air, and fixing it into_

_The soil for plants to use, I’m sure they’re all grateful to you_

 

_Oh bacteria, bacteria, though simple and so small—_

_Without you ecosystems would not function well at all”_

 

Gast’s mouth fell open and his eyes flood with tears.

 

What seemed like a lifetime ago, in that miserable old house, Gast had often talked to the swell of Lucrecia’s middle. Talked, and _sang._

 

Lucy would lay on that chaise sofa in the parlor, elevating her feet; Vincent at the piano playing some sad, somber thing. Once, Gast had plopped down next to her, started up a casual conversation with her belly. And then he took a deep breath and sang so loudly the house almost shook. When he reached the chorus, he shouted for Vincent to play along. The Turk stared at them both as if they had lost their minds until Lucy pleaded, big eyed, and Vincent begrudgingly plunked away single notes in an attempt to match Gast’s caterwauling.

 

After that, Gast took every opportunity he could to sing science songs to the baby, to Hojo's great annoyance and Lucrecia's delight. “ _Parasite_ ,” he had decided for a nickname. And the 'Bacteria Song' had been the one he sung the most.

 

When Sephiroth finished, he shrugged again. “From _before_. What did you bring me?”

 

Gast swallowed the lump in his throat, grabbed one of the large leather bound tomes and set it in Sephiroth’s lap. “I promised I’d come back, and I promised I’d tell you about Shiva.”

 

Gast peeled open the cover, his movements deliberate and gentle. The book was beautiful, pages and pages of crisp cursive handwriting, each page adorned with drawings. Some were full and colorful, others were sketches. Sephiroth’s eyes went wide as Gast flipped through, read the tales associated with each aloud, pointed out details of the artwork.

 

Halfway through, Sephiroth looked up to Gast, awed and curious. “Did you draw these pictures?”  

 

Gast shook his head, gave his glasses a nudge up his nose. “No. My friend did. You see, he was a scientist who spent his whole life studying this, collecting all the stories about these creatures, searching for them, finding new ones. His name was... Grimoire.” Gast paused as his heart turned to lead. He shift his full attention to the little boy, studied his strange eyes before he spoke again, processed the realization of his words. “You would have liked him very, very much.”

 

Sephiroth’s unblinking eyes that had once seemed so eerie, now seemed only sad.  “Am I your friend too?”

 

Gast nodded, over and over and over. “ _Yes_.”

 

He forced himself to continue to read, to feel something that wasn’t guilt or loss or shame. And after much time had passed, after they had finally found Shiva in the dusty pages, after Sephiroth scoot up close, rest his head on the scientist’s shoulder and fell asleep to the sound of his voice; Gast felt it all.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	11. Trust

 

“What’s this?” Gast raised a brow at the envelope pushed into his hand. Veld shrugged.

 

Gast worked the flap open with his thumb, tugged out a greeting card. The picture was a cartoon style rainbow arced between two smiling clouds. Beneath the rainbow was a small, clean white font that said simply; _go to hell._

 

Inside, one of the data discs had been taped along side a scrawl.

 

_I’m glad you’re not dead_

_You owe me a ~~beer~~ _ _mountain of cocaine_

 

Gast smiled, a big closed lip smile.

 

“I uh, I’m… not good at...” Veld rubbed at the back of his neck. “Anyway. That’s the file you were trying to pull when you got caught. ...You’d of made a terrible fuckin’ Turk.”

 

“Of that I am well aware. Don’t know how you guys do it.”

 

Veld folded his arms, a defense against feeling. “Are you really going to come back?”

 

“Yeah. But I have something else I need to tend to first. It may be a while but… yes.”

 

“What are you _really_ doing with those files, Faremis?”

 

Gast wished. For another world, another timeline, where friends and trust and love beat back the shadows of trauma. But that world was not this one. “I told you. Personal record. It’s been my life’s work.”

 

Veld narrowed his dark, crisp eyes. “Hm. Curious to see what you do with the rest of it.”

 

“Goodbye, Veld.” Gast held out his hand, an offering. Veld turned away, shoved his own into his pockets, started back to his office.

 

“Veld?” Gast looked to the card in his hands, then to the back of a navy blue suit. “Thanks.”

 

Veld didn’t turn around to speak, only waved dismissively over his shoulder. “Didn’t do it for you. Did it for Vince.”

 

Gast dropped his gaze. “...That’s what I’m thankful for.”

 

 

 

 

†††

  
  


 

He had almost made it to the bank of public elevators, a quick ride down, and then out-- out into the sunlight, away from the scent of antiseptic and metal. Away from consequences personified.

 

Gast stopped, hesitated.

 

It had been simple enough to slip back into the Science Department; a bit harder to breach the medical wing. He had paid close attention to the patterns of movement in staff during his other visits. A door caught at the last moment behind a careless tech; an easy distraction offered via complaint of noises coming from the kennels; an armful of clean linens and a helpful nurse with a keycard.

 

Sephiroth was sitting cross legged in his bed, watching his newly gifted video. The dressings on his wound had been downgraded to a large adhesive bandage. He leaned side to side, mimicked Johnny X on screen as the snowboarder wove through obstacles. Gast set down the linens, but did not close the door. He didn't want to arouse suspicion-- changing bedsheets didn't require privacy, and he did not intend for a long farewell. Sephiroth patted the spot on the bed next to him, but did not look away. Gast could see the corners of his lips raise in profile.

 

“I uh,” Gast cleared his throat, “I came to say goodbye to you. I'm leaving for a while.” He lowered the mask, made sure Sephiroth could see his face.

 

The boy’s posture went stiff, but did not look away from the screen. His expression was not one befitting a child. “No.”

 

“Professor will be back very soon, and I _cannot_ be here when he is, not yet.” Gast allowed the consideration that this had been a very bad idea.

 

Sephiroth turned slowly, slid down off the bed. “I said _no_.”

 

At first, Gast thought Sephiroth was going to sprint forward the way he stood; his little hands coiled into tight fists at his sides, a deep lean forward. But the boy did not move. His voice had a coldness to it that, even all things considered, seemed jarring coming from something so small. “Stay. Here.” It was not a request.

 

Gast frowned deeply, shook his head. “Sephiroth, I _have_ to, you see I--”

 

His attempt at an explanation was cut away by the sound of the steel door slamming shut with enough force to damage the frame. Gast spun around in time to see the blur of it as it swung violently, but nobody was near. He instinctively took a half step back. Sephiroth’s unblinking stare ripped through the scientist, pinned him where he stood.

 

Gast swallowed hard, tried again. “--I’m going to come back, but I… it is very dangerous, for all of us, for me to be here--”

 

The overhead fluorescent lights flickered, as did the bedside light. One of the bulbs popped and shattered, spit sparks. “No _talking_.” Sephiroth took a step forward, spurred by the realization of loss. The only person who had ever shown him any kindness, treat him as something other than just another of Hojo’s twisted, cruel playthings, was abandoning him to the fate he had no choice in. Worse, Gast had shown him something he had never known -- and now threatened to take it away.

 

All of the lights went out at once, submerged the two into a black so deep it suffocated. The only light came from faint and gentle halos of aquamarine, the glow of Sephiroth's eyes.

 

The equipment powered down, failed, staticed and smoked. The steady ambient hums and beeps of monitors and machinery died away, left nothing but a piercing, eerie silence. Gast had only ever heard quiet like that once before; when he had performed the emergency shut down Reactor 00 in Nibelheim, in the bowels of a dead labyrinthian metal beast, stood face to face with Jenova’s betrayal in the hungry darkness.

 

“You _can’t_ leave. I won’t let you.”

 

Gast’s heart beat so fast and hard it made him feel faint. He was dizzy and disoriented from the pounding in his head and chest, all of it amplified by the terrible dark. The thought that he’d never see Iflana again, his real Cetra, see their child born, buy Veld a beer or two or twelve, right all the wrong he had caused crushed him. But not as much as the irony and acceptance that this, of all things, was how it would end. Nothing resolved, nothing fixed, nothing better. Just _more_. More mess, and more death, echoes and echoes distorting with each oscillation, the butterfly and the tsunami, Lucrecia’s beloved Chaos Theory.

 

Sephiroth’s words seemed to be coming from all around the room, above and below and everywhere. Gast’s thrashing heart nearly stopped at the _sound_. Sephiroth’s childish voice was soft and high and forefront, but it wasn’t his alone. His words were formed of layers, tones painfully familiar; Lucy’s and Vincent’s and most terribly of all, Hojo’s. Sephiroth’s anger was obvious, a contrast to the calmness in which he spoke. “I’ll kill you. And I’ll keep you.”

 

Gast lowered himself slowly to his knees, his trembling hands patting at the darkness for the floor. He steadied himself when he found it, attention fixed on the unblinking glow before him. It was his guess that even though he could not see, Sephiroth could. Gast made certain he was eye level, just in case. When he spoke, it was gentle. “I’m not afraid of you.”

 

Sephiroth did not respond.

 

Gast let the silence linger for a moment. When enough quiet had passed, he reached into the darkness with one hand, the other steady on the floor.  “Because we’re _friends_.”

 

Gast could not see anything but Sephiroth’s eyes-- The boy did not speak, or move, or blink.

 

“I _will_ come back. And maybe someday soon you can come visit me. Lots and lots of snowboarding where I live. I’ll even get you your own gear.”

 

Gast sensed a slight movement, but it was followed by nothing but silence.

 

“Sephiroth. I _promise_.”

 

He couldn’t see it, but he felt it, the soft warmth of the boy’s little hand in his palm. Gast gave it a long, tight squeeze.

 

And the door behind them lashed open.

 

Light from the hallway cut a long, harsh rectangle into the darkness of the room, fell across Sephiroth’s face, still half covered in shadow. His cheeks were slick with silent tears. Gast forced himself to stand, forced himself to turn, forced himself to go.

 

The sound of the door slamming and the disturbance in the equipment had summoned a group of nurses and lab techs, stampeding toward the boy’s room in a faceless mass of blue. Gast pulled up his mask, dipped his chin to his chest. He walked as quickly as he could forward, slipped through the commotion and moved down the hallway.

 

He did not stop when he heard screaming, _breaking_. He did not stop to decipher the chaotic shouting, the distinct sounds of violence, the bleating of an alarm.

 

And he did not stop when moments later Veld burst through the doors at the end of the hallway surrounded by a group of Turks, tasers and truncheons in hand. Gast caught Veld’s eye as he tore past, and a pit of dread bloomed in his gut.


	12. Returns

A hush spread through the laboratory, a seeping shadow. Sourced by the question marked posture of a man in white and gray, a gather of slick black hair resting along his spine. His movement through the hallways part bodies to either side as staff cleared well out of his way. Some bowed their heads in silent greeting, some offered weak, quiet hellos.

 

Respect or fear. It was all the same in the end. 

 

Hojo had returned. 

 

The Science Department had attempted to make Sephiroth as presentable as possible, wash the blood out of his hair. It ended with a few shattered limbs and hair no cleaner than before the attempt. They had cleaned up the three lab techs that he had killed as well, prepared broken bodies for disposal. The families would receive a letter of sympathy from the ShinRa corporation, the explanation of an undisclosed accident, and if the President was feeling generous, a small sum of gil. Someone who wasn't Hojo would sign Hojo's name.

 

The clock said 15:48, and 1548 said that Sephiroth would be in the B wing of the laboratory, engaged in ‘programing.’ Hojo did not stop his brisk march forward until he shoved open the door to the makeshift classroom. Sephiroth stood.

 

He had been practicing writing his name with a chunky red crayon, held it upright and with his entire fist. He could wield a katana well enough to kill, but his handwriting was a childish scrawl. The boy’s face lit with the excitement of a puppy reunited with it’s owner. “Professor!”

 

Hojo moved with a quickness that was at odds with his slumping, sulking posture. He marched to Sephiroth and tugged down his shirt collar to examine his wound. Sephiroth cringed as the Professor’s fingers wormed under the fabric around his neck, pulled it side to side. 

 

“Hold still. Stop wiggling.” There was no warmth to Hojo’s voice, no patience. He peeled back the corner of the bandage, exposed the stitched up flesh. Sephiroth shift his weight back and forth between his feet. Hojo frowned, deep and long. “That was a very simple scenario you failed.”

 

Hojo looked away from the wound and down into the boy’s soft round face, held his attention on Sephiroth’s huge eyes. Hojo tried; tried to say  _ I was so frightened _ , to say  _ I’m so glad you’re safe _ , to say,  _ I missed you, I’m not leaving you again, I’m sorry _ . Instead, he only said  “Why?”

 

“A man was watching.” Sephiroth shrugged. “In your place.”

 

Hojo narrowed his eyes. “What man?”

 

‘I thought he was you at first but he wasn't you because you were gone and I got dretracted.”

 

“The word is  _ distracted _ , Sephiroth,  _ what _ man?” 

 

Sephiroth thought of his friend, the one with the face, the one who had books about summons written by a man in a strange red coat, who owned words that meant something tangible and never touched without asking. There had been another man on the observation deck. And that one was not a friend. “Turk.”

 

Hojo frowned again. “Which one?”  

 

Sephiroth tapped his left cheek, in the place that correlated to the thick rope of scar that ran up Veld’s face. Hojo sighed, a mixture of relief and annoyance. Sephiroth had confirmed Veld’s story; more, Sephiroth had never lied. Nor would he. Hojo ensured this, made it a priority. So much of Sephiroth’s social conditioning was easily written off as a necessity of his purpose. The personal elements were easily concealed, even to himself. Hojo had suffered the foolishness of lies before. Once had been enough. In such tightly controlled conditions, Hojo was confident he had engineered the desire and ability of deception out of the boy.

 

An  _ honest _ boy. An  _ obedient _ boy. Unsentimental, unattached, beyond the pettiness of humans. Because he was not one; he was something more. Hojo looked at Sephiroth with a pensive melancholy. Such a cold hearted boy; a perfect machine. A machine. Just a machine. 

 

Hojo dipped into a crouching position. “Ah. Veld Dragoon. That man is a vulgar, insufferable moron. All Turks are. Every single one of them. You keep away from them, do you understand me?”

 

A chunk of Sephiroth’s hair was clumped with dried blood, swayed against his shoulder when he nodded. Hojo reached out slowly, grabbed the bottom of the boy’s ringlet, gently pulled it straight. Lucrecia’s hair had been stick straight, as was his own. The blood had made the white strands a dark, rusty red-- a color Sephiroth’s hair could have been if he had been a boy instead of a machine. But the dried blood flaked away as Hojo pulled gently against the curl, bounced back when he let go. 

 

Hojo rest his elbows on his knees, still crouching. His voice had softened, seemed now almost enduring. “...Why did you kill my technicians? One of them happened to be exceptionally useful.”

 

Sephiroth shrugged again. “I don’t want to wash my hair.”

 

Hojo stood. “You are not to kill anything outside of the arena. You know the rules. I suppose I should punish you.”

 

Sephiroth shook his head meekly, a spread of fear across his face. 

  
  
  


 

†††

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Hojo did not look up from his notes when he heard his door open and close, nor when a stack of VHS tapes were slid across his desk.

 

“Here’s the footage you wanted. That, or it’s my security footage themed porn collection. So many of these things, get ‘em mixed up. Either way, enjoy.” Veld had no intention of lingering. He turned to exit as quickly as he had come in. The tapes had been from security cameras A1-4. Veld had asked Tseng to edit a timestamp onto fake footage, a brief solo visit to the observation deck. He had been confident Hojo would be too busy to ever review them all anyway.

 

Hojo still did not look up, bent deeply over his papers. “You are never to enter the observation deck again. Is that clear?” 

 

“Noted. I’ll keep it in mind the next time my position requires me to enter the observation deck.” Veld didn’t stop walking.

 

Hojo finally looked up. “It is  _ not _ a request.” He slammed down his pen, narrowed his eyes. “You Turks are all alike. You think you can do whatever you please, to whomever you please. You think that suit is a pass to interfere in everything, touch what isn’t yours. That room is full of delicate, expensive equipment and--”  

 

Veld stopped himself, tossed a look over his shoulder. It was no secret that Hojo disliked everything about the ShinRa with the exception of his laboratory and the means to fill it; and the Turks were no exception. Once, Veld would have dismissed his insults as noise from a bitter, socially inept loner. But Hojo’s insults had new meaning, perhaps more than he had even intended. Veld jingled the keys in his pocket, turned around. 

 

“What happened to Vincent, Hojo?” 

 

The scientist’s eyes hardened. He picked up his pen, turned his attention back to his notes. “I have no interest in discussing that psychopath.”

 

“Hey-- watch it.” Veld took a step to the desk.

 

“What is the problem, exactly? What would you like me to call a man who killed half the population of Nibelheim simply for the crime of being in the vicinity of his person? He slaughtered an entire squadron of yours as well, or did you forget that?”

 

“I didn’t forget.” Veld’s omnipresent casual, almost bored sarcasm was suddenly absent. 

 

“And that,” Hojo cut, “is your fault as much as his, isn’t it?”

 

Veld’s chest ballooned. “He was a good Turk. He was my  _ best _ Turk. He--”

 

“He was  _ dangerous _ !” Hojo stood suddenly, palms flat on his desk. 

 

Veld stepped forward again, a subconscious answer to a challenge. “He was my  _ friend _ .” 

 

“A suit and a comb could not, and did not, change what he was! A professionally trained killer who happened, by some apparent oversight, to also be an unstable lunatic!”

 

“He was under me for ten years with only a few minor incidents in the very beginning.  _ Something  _ made him snap!”

 

“Did you ever consider,” Hojo rounded the other side of the desk, moved closer to Veld, fearless, “that you had never actually rehabilitated him? That you simply channeled his nature elsewhere?”

 

Veld folded his arms, perhaps because he found himself strangely intimidated by Hojo. “I didn’t  _ consider _ it-- it was the  _ point _ .”

 

“Ah.” Hojo nodded shallowly, as if weighing the Turk’s response. “So surely you’ve considered that sending him into drug dens and whore houses with the explicit instruction to destroy things sated some sort of compulsion? Perhaps he, in your words ‘snapped,’ because there was nothing to satisfy that compulsion in that quiet old house.”

 

“I knew Vincent better than anyone. I’m not denying that his past was a mess. And I’m not denying that he... “ Veld was suddenly very angry, and very sad, “that he had struggles. But he was  _ more _ than that.”

 

Hojo’s volume ticked up. “He was a beast, slave to his impulses. He was obsessed with my wife, followed her every move like the dog he was. She was so loving and naive; and she had no clue about who or what he was. She was carrying my child-- weak and vulnerable-- and he haunted her, looming everywhere-- a voyeur! My poor lonely wife thought he was her friend, excused his insanity as harmless quirks. It terrified me!”

 

Veld tried to conceal his surprise-- he had never expected Hojo to admit fear of anything; especially in a way that seemed so absolutely sincere. Worse, Veld could see it. He could see Vincent with his mannequin face standing silently in corners, watching and motionless, a sentinel. Veld had received numerous comments over the years about Vincent’s general creepiness-- and he himself had been unnerved by Vincent’s strange mannerisms more than once. Veld wished Vincent had been standing there, if only to smack him upside the back of the head.

 

“I advised her to keep her distance from him, especially after he accost me several times. The first was when I informed him she was pregnant. It was none of his business, but he was about to break down my bedroom door. He grabbed me by the throat, almost broke my neck, threw me to the floor. And when I thought he had come back to his senses and calmed down, he put his gun into my face. The only reason he did not pull the trigger was because his tantrum woke Lucrecia and she called out for me. Perhaps he was a good Turk, Veld. He was _ not  _ a good person. He was no person at all.” 

 

Veld frowned, felt very lost. Lost, and guilty. “...He loved her.”

 

“ _ As did I _ !” For a moment, Hojo looked as if he was going to cry. Cry, or laugh until his ribs cracked, until he vomited gales of blood. “He  _ fucked  _ her! Just like he fucked every woman who was stupid enough to spread their legs for a chiseled face and an illusion of importance! He used her, and he  _ hurt _ her. I am finished speaking to you about personal matters. I understand you lost your ‘best Turk.’ I lost a lot too. A great deal. Now if you please, I have better things to do than trudge through nonsense that happened long ago!”

 

“It’s interesting,” Veld watched Hojo’s face carefully, “up on the observation deck, watching Sephiroth. As he gets older… he sure does look an awful  _ lot _ like Vincent, don’t you think?” 

 

Something visibly cracked in Hojo. “If you are going to come up with delusional theories, have the decency for them to be based in logic when speaking to a scientist! Vincent had a vasectomy! It’s in his files more than once; right next to the pages of all the various venereal diseases he so loved to collect!”

 

“From what I understand, it is possible for a vasectomy to fail.” 

 

“There is a miniscule chance of failure. If it had, it would have elsewhere! That worthless creature would have traveled the world impregnating women like dandelions! Not the only time it would have actually  _ mattered _ . Get the hell out of my office.”

 

“You know, I’m gettin’ old. Memory is going.”

 

“You’re in your late thirties!”

 

“Yeah, well, I’ve done a looooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaoooooout of drugs.” 

 

“You disgust me,” Hojo spat.

 

“You feeling disgust is impressive. I’ll take that one as a compliment. But that whole… memory thing,” Veld picked at his teeth with a fingernail. “Tell me again. One more time. He was like my kid brother, you see. And I miss him. Nobody lurking behind me, or standing in the corner of my office for a half hour before I notice ‘em, scaring the holy hell out of me. Do you have any idea how hard it is to sneak up on me? I mean, I’m the leader of the--”

 

_ “--Get out!!!” _

 

The playfulness in Veld’s voice was gone, a tactic to confuse. “What happened to Vincent?”

 

“My wife died giving birth to my son. That idiot went on a berserker murder spree and wandered off into the mountains to get himself killed. Good fucking riddance.”

 

“You  _ sure  _ that’s what happened?” When Hojo didn’t answer, Veld chuckled. “All your experiments, all your brainwashing. You think you can overwrite the truth. Nature always finds a way.”

 

The pulse at Hojo’s neck throbbed visibly. “It does… doesn’t it?” He thought of Vincent, the thing that was once Vincent, the thing that was now some shattered husk full of dark and dangerous secrets. And then he smiled. “I cannot say for certain what happened to him. Perhaps he stormed off into the mountains as your evidence would suggest. Perhaps he ran off to Costa Del Sol, suffocated himself between the thighs of some whore. Or, perhaps, his dismembered body is rotting in the basement of the ShinRa mansion, minus an arm.” Hojo’s smile grew, wide and wild and so very wicked. “Why don’t you go find out?”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	13. Infusions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: (child) Sephiroth endures a painful medical procedure.
> 
> Suggested Listening: [ Antimatter - Portrait of a Young Man as an Artist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_KPaNHKZfQ)

“Did you review the new procedure?” Hojo’s arms were looped behind his back, wrists crossed at the base of his spine.

 

One of the techs nodded, checked and rechecked the notes on his clipboard. There was a novel’s worth of words. “And if something goes wrong?”

 

Hojo made an indignant noise. “It _won’t_.”

 

Seven men stood in a row outside the room, silently awaiting instruction. “If he harms any of you, it is because you made a mistake. Because you did not follow my instructions. I will prepare him. Do not enter until I have signaled, and do not let him see any of the equipment until I have left.” Hojo turned away from the technicians, entered the procedural room.

 

Sephiroth swung a leg with idle annoyance. He hated the procedure chair, thought it too big and too deep; a forced and unwanted embrace. The vinyl surface was too cold when first sitting and too hot after sitting and sticky regardless.

 

And this time, this time, out of nowhere there were straps.

 

"Hey!" Sephiroth wrenched his arm away, recoiled it to his chest at Hojo's first attempt to bind it to the armrest.

 

Hojo grabbed the little boy's tiny wrist and fearless, wrestled it back down. There was no violence in it, nothing but the stern but gentle force of a father. "Cooperate."

 

"What are you doing?!" Sephiroth ripped his arm back again, but Hojo did not let go; instead the whole of his body pulled behind it. The Professor was unfazed. Again, he forced the boy's arm down. "After your tantrum, it is an issue of liability.  It is the way of things in this tiresome world, Sephiroth. Those above must sometimes appease those below."

 

"I don't--"

 

"You are above. There is nothing like you in the entire world. You are special, beyond. All else is below. They fear you." _As they should_ , Hojo mused, _and this will hurt_ . He did not dare explain the truth of what the restraints were for. There was no point in frightening the boy further. Hojo did not care how many casualties Sephiroth caused; only that the procedure was performed. Once the intravenous transfer began, he would be too disoriented to defend himself, too overwhelmed to manifest elements, the things lesser humans called _magic._

 

"No! I don't want the straps! I'll sit still, I promise!"

 

Hojo narrowed his eyes. He had never heard Sephiroth use that word before. 'Promise' was a idealistic word, not a factual one.  "Where have you picked up the notion of promises? Put your arms down and hold still this instant. This sort of defiance is befitting and animal. You disappoint me. And here I was just saying how superior you are. Are you? Or are you an animal, like the rest?"

 

Sephiroth sat up very straight, a wounded look in his huge round eyes. "No, Professor. I am the SOLDIER." Sephiroth lay down his arms, slowly, gently. A good boy, and important. Not a beast.

 

Hojo wrenched the straps tightly around each of Sephiroth's wrists. "There is no such thing as a promise." Steel cuffs swung over the straps; Hojo locked each with soft little latching sounds. Lucrecia had liked that word. It was dramatic and romantic. _Promise me, do you promise?_ Wedding vows and whispers under sheets and... "A promise is a distraction, a flourish, nothing more. Words are meaningless." Hojo crouched, repeated the straps and cuffs around Sephiroth's ankles.

 

When he stood again, Hojo finished with a head restraint. He paused to note the look of apprehension that smeared across the boy’s face, and his failed attempt to hide it. Sephiroth was trying to be brave, to not disappoint. Those above must sometimes appease those below. “You’ve had countless mako injections. I will return.” Hojo checked both wrist cuffs a final time before turning to exit.

 

He waved dismissively at the technicians who awaited his signal in the hallway. It was a weak gesture, a limp wristed flick. He hadn’t stopped to do it, just walked on hunched and withdrawn. It was a difficult retreat to his office, but his absence was strategic. And Sephiroth would scream. Hojo did not want to hear it.

 

The technicians poured into the room with their covered faces, moving quick and silent, some wheeling carts of equipment. They moved with a fearful, cautious haste, worked open the front of Sephiroth’s medical gown, connect EKGs, electrodes and wires. Oxygen monitors, EMG needles. And an IV stand.

 

Sephiroth lost the ability to be special, to be better, to be above. Panic took him, sent him thrashing and twisting against the restraints. This was no standard mako injection, a routine poke in a rotating list of parts. “Professor!” He wondered if he’d ever see Gast again, a frantic search for a face in the swarm of surgical blue masks. Sephiroth’s voice had distended into a desperate squeak. “Professor!!”

 

The first injection was quick, and the fuzz that followed blurred his vision, doubled the bodies, made him sleepy. His arms and legs felt like lead at first, immobilized. Ketamine. He almost didn’t notice the IV line slipped into the crook of his arm; but he felt the flow when it began. The fluid in the bag was the same color as his eyes, a full bulge. Raw mako. It felt like shards of glass as it surged through his veins, burning and sharp, relentless. Sephiroth tried to tear himself free, rip out the IV line. But the pain was blinding, immobilized him more than the sedatives. His body contorted involuntarily, his spine arching away from the chair, a reverse curl that shattered into convulsions.

 

Hojo frowned deeply from behind his desk at the sound. Sephiroth’s screaming seemed to permeate the entirety of the the science wing, reminded him of the anguished noises Vincent had made the first time he awoke from his undeath and transformed. The memory brought him no respite. Hojo shook his wrist free from his sleeve, watched the second hand of his watch chip away at time, the universally agreed upon fabrication. What time _was_ didn’t matter; it was useful, a unit to measure things that did.

 

And when enough passed, Hojo stood again, walked through the hallways and back to the procedure room. He made sure to move slowly, to counter his desire to break into a jog, unfold into a full run, the pump of legs and arms and the flutter of labcoat. Walk like time, like a second hand, step, step, step.

 

When he entered the room, he first glanced to the contents of the IV bag. It had not yet emptied completely. Sephiroth had stopped screaming, became a silent, tearful tremble instead. Hojo watched him, his little fingers coiled into white knuckled fists, the toes of his socked feet turned inward. His face was splotched with patches of bright red and slick with tears.

 

Hojo took a slow step to the procedure chair, suddenly uninterested in the readouts of the equipment, the lines on the monitors. _My brave boy._ “...That’s enough.”

 

Sephiroth opened his eyes at the sound of Hojo’s voice. They glowed so brightly the luminance obscured his pupils, made the streaks of tears on his cheeks look like dripping neon. His lips were wet and swollen, and he exhaled a series of exhausted, helpless whimpers.

 

Hojo removed the IV line, smoothed a bandage over the incision site. He unlocked the cuffs, loosened and pulled away the straps. Sephiroth collapsed onto himself, curled into a small tight ball. His whole body shook, but he made no noise. Hojo scooped up the boy, turned him upright in his arms. If Sephiroth did not want to be touched or held, he did not protest. Being held was better than being pumped full of mako, strapped to a horrible chair.

 

As an infant, Sephiroth loved being held. And _talked_ to. He’d scream for hours and hours until his little face turned blue, until Hojo paced up and down the hallways with him. The professor walked in infinite loops, rambled about DNA sequencing. Only then would the baby calm down, nuzzle against him, and worse, _smile_. The more he smiled, the more Hojo hated the task until he refused to do it at all; delegated it to his staff. _Never the same person twice_ , he insisted, _and never let him see your face. The only face he will see is mine._

 

Sephiroth said something, an unintelligible tangle of noise.

 

Hojo shift the boy gently, shushed him. The lack of response prompted Sephiroth to try again, each word slow and weak and small, but so determined. “I’m not… a… a-mn-imal.”

 

 

†††

  
  
  
  
  
  


Lucrecia’s voice. Always her voice. Never anything else.

 

“Vincent.”

 

What was real and what was not had lost its line, something that used to matter. He had put so much emphasis on _reality,_ on certainty. Facts. A long time ago, or just before. He wondered how long an eternity would last, imagined as far into the distant future as his mind would allow him and tried to double it. Comprehending infinity was impossible, even with nothing else to do. Perhaps someday the world would end, rip apart the abysmal prison that was once his truth, give him peace in the death of everything.

 

That idea alone gave him comfort. Everything dying.

 

“Vincent,” she spoke again. His hallucinations had started off sweet and sentimental, but now she only nagged.

 

He wished she was still alive so he could find her and kill her himself.  A thought more monstrous than the thing his body had become.  “Leave me.”

 

“Vincent. Get up.”

 

A dream, or a dream in a dream, or a dream in a dream or… madness, probably. Just simple madness, the decay of a brain that could not die, rot by isolation and gnawed into nothing by obsessive regrets. He had been called mad before, even knew that he was; but this was something different.

 

“No.” Vincent didn’t bother to open his eyes. He didn’t want to see her, even a shade of her.

 

Her voice sounded closer. “You _must_. Find your son.”

 

“Leave me alone. For _once_.”

 

Vincent could feel her hands on his face, warm and soft and small. “Vincent. Get up. He is _hurting_. You promised me that you would get our baby.”

 

The corners of his lips snapped upwards, peeled away from his teeth. He was smiling through no conscious mechanism of his own. “I _promised_.” Vincent started to laugh, his deep smooth voice distorted into an ugly unnatural, wicked thing. “I _promised_ I wouldn’t hurt your husband. And I didn’t.”

 

Her voice was so sweet, sweet and so, so sad. “Go get Sephiroth.”

 

“I didn’t hurt him when he took advantage of your stupid, selfish naivety.” Vincent had stopped laughing. “I didn’t hurt him when he abandoned you to play mad scientist down here, left me to care for you, watch you waste away. I didn’t hurt him when he shoved needles into you, inject you and your baby with some monstrosity none of you understood. I didn’t hurt him when I found out that baby was _mine_ , when you both took the entire fucking experience from me, twisted it into torment, rubbed it in my face.”

 

He could feel the monster stirring within.

 

“I didn’t hurt him when we were so close to being _safe_ , Lucy-- when he pried our sleeping infant out of your arms, took him out into the cold surrounded by a group of dangerous men I didn’t know, into this fucking forsaken basement. I didn’t hurt him when I stood a foot from his face, held up both of my hands in surrender, unarmed and broken. And I didn’t hurt him when I apologized-- and _meant_ it-- for what YOU did. When he put a fucking bullet into my chest, yet denied me the ability to die! I _promised_. Because you made me. I’m done with promises.”

 

“You’re a coward.”

 

“Yeah? You're right. I'm scared. Should I feel shame for this? Should I be ashamed I am afraid that the mere sight of him would cause me to turn, that I’d rend his little body into nothing; not even realize what I had done? Even if somehow I was able to control myself at first, it would only be a matter of time before I could not. If I didn't murder him, I would terrify him. How many more people, how many more lives would I destroy? I cannot care for him, who would? Should I find him, should he survive it-- where would I take him? If he's alive out there, somewhere... you think the ShinRa would ever let him go? I will not have him know who or what I am. Whatever fate has befallen him... it will never be worse than one with me.”

 

“Why didn't you kill Hojo?” Lucrecia’s voice hurt him.

 

“I promised I wouldn't!”

 

“Why didn't you kill Hojo?”

 

“You wouldn't _let_ me-- you--”

 

“Why didn't you kill Hojo?”

 

“Goddam it, because you--! _You_ … I… _I_ wanted… to be the person... you thought I was. The person I wanted to be. I thought that if I could control myself, if I walked away from the only legitimate reason to hurt someone… I would have been.”

 

“Be it now. Go find Sephiroth. He needs his father.”

 

“His father?" Vincent laughed again once more, dry and harsh. The word _father_ seemed cruel, a punchline to a wicked joke. "If I was once... if I was ever... I’m not anymore. Get the fuck away from me.”

 

Her breath was hot against the side of his face, the way it had been when they lay in bed together long ago. “What are you then?”

 

Still, he did not open his eyes. He didn’t want to see her, even knowing she was not really there. He missed her so much it hurt, an ache in his core; love and hate as blurred as the reality of a rotting mind. “A monster.”

 

For a very long time, Lucrecia did not speak. “Do you hate me?”

 

“...No.” The warmth he imagined faded; and he almost called out for her to stay, begged her not to leave him, to let him hold her one last time.

 

“Go back to sleep.”


	14. Secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested listening - [ Noah Gundersen - David ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1W-kLQZUs4)

Veld left Tseng in charge.

 

The young Turk was more than capable. He had a focus about him that was reminiscent of Vincent, without the dangerous undercurrent of unpredictability. Tseng's devotion was equal to his skill. If something were to happen, the D.A.R would be in good hands.

 

At first, Veld had dismissed Hojo's suggestion as mere mindgames. A wicked man preying on a weak spot, a trick that could have served several purposes. To seed an awful thought, bore roots of suspicion and what-ifs through his consciousness, turn his mind into a sieve of paranoia. Or a fool's errand to distract, or worse, a trap. Hojo knew that hinting at Vincent's fate would be irresistible. If Veld knew something Hojo did not want anyone else to know, his goading was sure to serve a purpose. And Veld decided that he did not care.

 

The drive from Midgar to the Junon port was long and tedious, rolling lush hills that seemed to go on forever, as beautiful as they were boring. The thought was discomfiting, that something so beautiful could ever become so boring. That something once awe inspiring could become mundane enough to almost vanish entirely. Veld wondered if that had been the fate of his marriage, if it had tarnished to something dull and lifeless while he was working, too busy to notice.

 

Turks shouldn’t have families. Couldn’t. It was too dangerous, and the job too demanding. In the end, it was better she had left him, took Felica with. Married that smug-faced mother fucker in Kalm who initiated ‘ice-cream for dinner’ days, took the girls on picnics and always came straight home from his 9-5; never missed tucking Felicia in.

 

“You lucked out, Vince.” Veld was surprised when he spoke aloud. He hadn’t meant to. And he didn’t stop. There was something healing in it, talking to someone who couldn’t listen. “A wife… a kid. That’s no life for a Turk. And once you’re a Turk… you can’t stop, can you? You see the world differently. All the bad shit, all the evil.” Veld’s knuckles had gone white around the steering wheel. “Worse, you’re part of it. Just as bad as anything else, ain't we?”

 

Veld was quiet for a while, turned on the radio, turned it up. But even the heavy guitar riffs of The Black Mages couldn’t drown out the din of his thoughts. He didn’t think at work. Work. Is that why he worked so much? Veld nudged the volume knob back down with a knuckle.

 

“You remember that one raid, the one that went all to shit, back in S-four-- wait--  in Sector two? The one where the guy was hiding in the bathroom and caught me between the ribs with a switchblade? Then you came outta fuckin’ nowhere, you goddam creeper, split him from the top of his head to his navel with some axe you found. I thought I was going to die. And I was so mad that the last thing I’d ever have seen was your fancy ass all covered in blood.” Veld smirked, fished a cigarette out of his breast pocket.

 

“Woke up in the medical wing with my wife weeping all over me.” He lit the Marlboro, exhaled harshly the initial draw. He didn’t want to smoke it, but it was something to do with his hands. “If I’d of died. Then. Maybe it would have stayed beautiful. Someone who dies loved is loved forever. Veld Dragoon. Beloved husband and father. He will be forever missed. A real fuckin’ hero.”

 

Veld tossed the cigarette out the window, throw it all away. “I can’t imagine you as a _dad_ , man. I read this story once, about a boy who bought a fish and wouldn’t let anyone else look at it because it was his. That’s how you’d be, isn’t it? You know what the worst part is? …Nevermind.” Veld refused to name the comparison out loud, even to himself.

 

He slept on the ferry from Junon to Costa Del Sol, considered walking into the ocean with a drink in both hands to be swallowed by the sea when he got there, drove on instead. It took him four days of straight travel to arrive in Nibelheim including a few brief stops-- refueling, a couple of naps, a flat tire, and a rural road made temporarily impassable by a pack of loitering, stubborn chocobos.

 

Veld parked his car next to the only other vehicle he saw, a beat up old brown thing at the entrance of the town. Several people had watched him pull up and park, narrow eyed and suspicious. The mountains made Nibelheim sequestered, a place nobody went without purpose. It had been the perfect place to build the first reactor, secluded and safe. Veld climbed out of the car and stretched, twist his torso and rolled his shoulders. All of the people in the square turned away from him, stopped their conversations, ushered their children quickly inside. On the initial investigation immediately following Hojo’s return to Midgar, nobody in Nibelheim would talk to anyone from the ShinRa. Veld had hoped the old adage about wounds and time would apply; knew from personal experience the only thing time fixed was expensive wine.

 

Veld had taken off his suit jacket, but the telltale cues of 'Turk' were hard to miss, especially in places they had been before.

 

He frowned. It was usually smugglers and dealers and gang members who scurried away from him with the all too familiar look of _us-versus-them,_ not civilians. Back in Midgar, children gawked at the clandestine suits as if they were celebrities, played pretend games of 'Turks and Smugglers' on the playgrounds. Here, the children were shoved back into their houses by frightened, angry parents. _Do they hate us? The ShinRa? The Reactor? Or the Turks?_ Veld wished he had worn something else, hired transport instead of driven his own car. He lift a hand in a half-assed wave to a man who glared over an armload of groceries. _Vince... what the fuck did you do?_

 

Perhaps it was the days of monotonous driving with nothing better to do than _think_ , or perhaps it was the altitude change of mountain air.  Veld felt sick, hit by a wash of exhaustion that almost brought him to his knees. The sun was setting behind Mount Nibel, spilled pink and blue and wild orange along her peaks. The electricity to the ShinRa Mansion had been shut off; it would be too dark to go searching soon, a convenient excuse to check into the inn, finally get some real sleep. And a drink.

 

The man behind the counter was older than Veld, evident by the gray in his beard and the lines in his face. He was wearing a red and black checked flannel shirt, his thick and hairy arms banded across his chest. Veld tried to smile, something closed lipped, something insincere but telling, something of a social nicety, a proof of effort that seemed to have already failed. “Hey,” Veld dug his wallet out of his back pocket. The ShinRa logo had been embossed on the front, so he flipped it around. “How much for a room?”

 

"You from the Turks?"

 

Veld looked dramatically left, then right, an expression of slow and cautious of surprise. "... _Me_?" He spread his arms, looked down at himself. "Turks? No, no... I'm with the _Yurks_. We walk little old ladies across the street and hand out candy to orphans. See, the T and the Y are right next to each other on a QWERTY board, an administrative fuck up and it's been a nightmare ever since, a real nigh--"

 

“Get in your pretty little car and go back to whatever slum hole you sauntered out of. The ShinRa are a scourge.”

 

“One fifty? Three hundred?” Veld tossed three thousand dollar gil notes onto the counter, frowned. “I’m not working. I’m not even here about the Reactor. Its personal. I hear it's a thing, people going on a pilgrimage into the mountains.”

 

The innkeeper drummed his fingers atop the gil, coiled them into his palm and slid them off the counter. His tone was still suspicious, but the money helped.  “Soul searching, are you?”

 

Veld pushed the wallet back into his pocket. “Somethin’ like that.”

 

†††

 

He couldn’t sleep. Midgar was loud, loud and busy and chaotic all through the night. Sirens, car horns, shouting, laughing, fucking. The sounds of _life_ . Traffic. Dogs barking. Gunfire. Television sets and radios, steam and pipes and the endless _chun-chun-chun_ of the Reactors. Here it was quiet, so silent that it hurt, a stinging, ringing, suffocating quiet. Things made noise that weren’t supposed to, sheets and lungs and hair, a whole other world of existence revealed in the hidden realm of absolute silence.

 

The moon was bright; so bright and cold it seemed unnatural, intrusive. Veld kicked off his blankets, still in his clothes. He stumbled into the hall, rounded to the stairwell and spilled down the steep worn steps.

 

Nibelheim was eerily pretty. Crickets chirped out an otherworldly collective nightsong, the grass and foliage turned deep indigo under the moonlight. And the stars; so many stars, clear constellations and whorls of glistening spatter. Not just specks of light, but stars; planets, really. Galaxies. Infinity.

 

Why did it matter? Any of this? Why did it feel so damn important when it was all clearly so fucking meaningless? From any of those stars, none of it would register as even a speck, not the ache in his heart over the emptiness that had always been there, not the morality he juggled so clumsily, not even Midgar so bright and big and alive.

 

And certainly not fathers of any kind, or mothers, or friends-- a dead friend, a lost friend. Nobody cared, not beyond the superficial platitudes; and why should they? Nobody cared unless it was them. Was it apathy? Or was it nobody knew how?

 

That was the worst part of it. When someone died. How everything went on.

 

Veld remembered his step-father’s funeral. Lots of _condolences._ Lots of _he was a good man._ Everyone in all black, speaking in hushed voices, sniffled hugs, pats on the back. That part was fine. It was the outside that wasn’t fine. He had sat on the steps to smoke, surprised when a pair of older kids passed by on bicycles. They were shouting, laughing. And across the road, a woman playfully slapped at her partner’s shoulder, kissed him. Someone carrying groceries hummed a chipper tune.

 

Veld had been sitting by himself, but he was quick to hide his face. _Don’t they know_ ? _Don’t they know that the world is different now? That nothing will ever fucking be the same?_

 

Stars and planets and galaxies and who-the-fuck-cares. Those people going on with their lives, they weren’t the ones who were wrong. Veld thought of Vincent with his stupid hair and his stupid face and his stupid fucking idiot emotional investment in every single thing, who cared too much about…everything, and worse, all that _nothing_. Veld scooped up a broken bit of the cobblestone path, threw it as hard as he could in the direction of the ShinRa mansion.

 

The door had been left unlocked. If it had been in Midgar, the place would be full to breaking with squatters and whores and drug labs. But the foyer was empty aside from a blanket of dust and pools of cold moonlight; and the discolored floorboards where six people had died.

 

The size of the house was overwhelming, a thousand nooks and crannies to hide a thousand secrets. And ghosts too, though he didn’t believe in them; the paranormal kind, anyway.  The last time Veld had come through the double doors the floor had been littered with his Turks, blood everywhere. When Felicia was a toddler, her mother often sung her a song while they tidied the apartment for the day.

 

_Clean up, clean up everybody everywhere,_

_Clean up clean up everybody clean_

 

Veld had sent everyone else away, cleaned the ruin of the Turks up all himself. Acknowledged that the world was different with every scrub. 

 

He did a quick sweep through the kitchen, the dining room, the sitting room at the front of the house. It was the parlor that had caught his attention, specifically the piano. Every time Veld crashed Vincent’s apartment, usually after a fight with his wife, Vincent would be at his little upright. The other Turks spent their off duty time in bars or at parties, socializing. Vincent stayed at home and played his piano.

 

Veld sat on the bench, plucked at a key. Graduated onto _‘_ chopsticks.’ Unimpressed with himself, he thumbed through the sheet music, frowned. Vincent had written in the margins of the ledger lines, his handwriting beautiful and crisp. _Lucy likes this one._ All of them notated. _Calms down baby, work into his song?_ Notes of all the things that mattered to him, but nothing about himself. _Dad’s favorite._

 

Behind all of the music was an old photograph, a faded, worn photo of a victorian girl Felicia's age, a crown of flowers in her hair. Sleeping. Veld frowned deeply. Once on a mission to Gongaga, Veld had looked everywhere for Vincent only to find him sitting outside in the grass surrounded by the village children. They had covered him from head to foot in dandelion chains, wove the weeds into his hair, stuffed them into his pockets and socks. Veld had been furious when Vincent refused to remove them before confronting the the target because ‘he had promise he would keep them.’ In the end, the arms trader had laughed so hard at the sight of the fabled Berserker Turk busting through the door covered in ropes of bright yellow flowers that Veld was able to cuff the man before he could resist.

 

The memory made Veld more frustrated than anything, wished he could have felt something else. Vincent was such a contradiction, and always had been. A man who had done unspeakable, senseless things and yet, had a heart full of more gentle, sincere love than any other.  And the cost for it was far too high. Unfair, unfair, who cares.

 

Hojo had mentioned the basement specifically. Veld forced himself on. He pulled out his flashlight, clicked it on. The beam cast a wide ring of light against the stairwell wall. Veld moved slowly down the spiral steps, down into the funk of mildew and damp stone. Hojo’s laboratory was still full of his old equipment, and the beam of his light revealed huge glass cylinders that resembled human-sized test tubes, tools, papers. Veld picked up a notebook off the desk, flipped through it. It was nothing but biological jargon, equations. He tossed it down onto the desk, sighed.  

 

The walls of the laboratory were lined with old books, shelves and shelves. If there was something relevant there he hadn’t caught the first time, there was no way he’d find anything now. Something took him, frustration, or the foolishness of this quest. He shouted, loud. “Vince…!”

 

Veld kicked at a few loose bricks, examined the floor for some sign of a pit, or a trapdoor.

 

Veld shouted again, a bite back against the creeping fear he might actually find something. “Hey Mr. Fancy Pants, you down here?”

 

He moved to the other side of the room, squint as he shined his light into the gap of one of the bookshelves and the wall. “I hear you’ve been chopped up and put in the floor. Gotta check on these things, it’s bad for PR.”

 

The only response was his echo, distorted in the way the past always does. Veld sighed again. He felt stupid for talking to himself, for calling out to someone who wasn’t there. For coming to this place at all. He turned, a trudge of shame back up the stairs, back to his car, back to the life he didn’t want and didn’t know how to leave.

  
In the frame of the doorway, his flashlight caught the white of a terrified face half obscured by a tangle of black greasy hair. And  _eyes_ , eyes so vividly, violently red they could only belong to a monster.


	15. Mercy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The incredible painting at the beginning of this chapter is by jg2758
> 
> Suggested listening - [First, I made this specifically for this chapter!](http://videogames.ambient-mixer.com/monster-within--vincent-ffvii-)
> 
> Second, [ Blood Starved Beast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIRaZntWkzg)
> 
> And finally, [ Black Mesa Theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbQ5sV-xvGM)

 

 

 

“Holy-fucking… shit!!!!” Veld stumbled backward, bashed into the table with the back of his thighs, upset the abandoned labglass. The falling glass shattered and rang, a million sparkles into the brick, an inverted, perverse dirt and shard sky. Veld dropped his flashlight too, fumbled to catch it as it clattered to the floor. He almost went down with it, braced himself from behind.

 

The flashlight rolled sideways, its beam cutting a shadow show through plumes of dust and dirt and broken glass.  Veld clutched at his chest. “ _Vincent_?!”

 

Vincent staggered forward, the metal of his left arm the only thing to catch any of the low sweeping beam. He was hard to see in the darkness, covered from boot to neck in some sort of black thing, a contraption that resembled from what Veld could make out, a suit of straps and restraints. Vincent, if it was really Vincent, looked like some dead thing, hollow and lost. He stopped when the light hit his face, squint against it. His hair hung in thick, tangled ropes to his elbows, his face the color of the bodies they had long ago dredged out of Midgar’s sewers. Even his lips had gone a blueish gray, a contrast to the wild and unnatural red of his eyes. But his face… that handsome, sharp featured face… Veld had not seen that face in eight years; yet Vincent had not aged a day.

 

Veld stared, slack jawed; a disgusted, terrified shock. Motionless. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t.

 

Vincent had first worn a look of frightened confusion, but his expression melted into one of suspicious annoyance. He swayed softly in the beam of light, leaned sideways and forward so deeply he seemed impossibly drunk. A marionette.

 

“Oh my fucking gods Vince… what the--”

 

Vincent took another few shambling steps forward. “...You’re going to wake up Lucrecia.”

 

“Wake up… Lu…? What the hell are you talking about? Is she… fuck, is she here too?! What the fuck happened to you man?!” Veld tried to push himself forward, but it only result in him standing straight, fighting the threatened buckling in his knees.

 

Vincent lift his right hand, made the shape of a gun with his fingers. He closed one eye behind them, took an imaginary shot at Veld. “...No. She’s not here. Neither are you.”

 

Veld’s mouth was still hanging open, any words he could think of lost in that space. “What he… what did he… _do_ to you…?”

 

“I just got her to go to sleep, Veld. She finally stopped _crying_ . Do you know how hard it is to listen to her _crying_ ”

 

Veld blinked, blinked again. Shook his head. Hard. Harder. This was some trick, some cruel, fucked up game. It had to be. “Vince… have you been… this whole time?” Veld finally managed to move forward,  “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but we have to get you out of here.”

 

Vincent moved so quickly Veld almost didn’t see it, a lunge, preposterous speed. And suddenly, Vincent had him by the tie, yanked him forward, nose to nose. “You can’t reassign me. I’m your best Turk. I won’t let you down.” Vincent’s breath was so strongly foul that Veld whipped his head back involuntarily, gagged.

 

“I won’t leave her. I promised I’d--”

 

Veld conjured his wits, finally able to take control of them. He clasped Vincent by both shoulders, shook him violently. Rage. Horror. Guilt? “Fuck the Turks!” Veld shook him again for good measure. Vincent had always been a lanky man, but now he felt like paper and bone in his hands, ashes.

 

“The Jenova project is _over_ , Vince! Everyone thought you were dead for the past six years-- I looked for you for almost a month without eating or sleeping or pissing-- and Hojo…”

 

Vincent blinked. The light of the flashlight cut long and severe shadows across the side of his face, illuminated just enough of his horrid eyes that Veld noticed them change.

 

Veld let go of Vincent’s shoulders, recoiled at the sight. Vincent’s pupils had shot out sideways, elongated into horizontal rectangles. It took a moment for his face to catch up, a distortion of anguish. Vincent staggered back too, clawed at the side of his head with his single functioning arm. “Just a dream, just a bad dream just a…”

 

Veld held up a hand, timid. “I’m going to help you. Whatever happened, it’s almost over. I’m here, I’m not leaving you.”

 

Veld moved slow and steady, another attempt. He’d get close enough, crack his elbow into the side of Vincent’s neck, or in the temple if he had to. Knock him out, throw him over his shoulders and haul him up. A potential concussion was the least of their concerns.

 

Vincent raked his fingers against his scalp, tugged at his hair, beat the heel of his palm against his head and shook it, frantic. “No no no nono…!” His backwards strides increased in width and pace, almost falling all the way, until he had vanished back into the shadows. And then he started to whimper, from somewhere within the damp cloying darkness; a mournful, frightened thing that turned into soft little sobs, laced with the plea of ‘ _run_.’

 

“Vince buddy, I need you to stay where I can see you-- get back in the light.” Veld lowered himself slowly to a crouch, never moving his eyes from the space his friend had been. He crept sideways, extend trembling fingers toward the flashlight; a slow unsteady reach.

 

He froze.

 

A rumble so loud and low it rattled the remaining unbroken glass rolled through the basement. A _growl_. And then, absolute, crushing, drowning silence.

 

Veld curled his fingertips around the flashlight, worked it into his palm. He was a brave man, but not brave enough to shine the beam through the doorframe. Not yet. He waited, counted the seconds, sent his right hand slowly to his holster. His voice was suddenly small, hesitant. “...Vincent…?”

 

Vincent screamed, loud and hard, and long too; agony. The sound of _ripping_ , of fluid splattering against stone, and something else, something _animal_.

 

The need to protect his friend overpowered any sense of self preservation. Vincent hadn’t simply been his best Turk, he had been his best _friend_. Brother, really, a stupid, lanky, awkward shadow of a little brother, always trailing behind. And even here, in his obvious madness, in the darkness of such a horrible place,  he had been afraid to disappoint.

 

Veld thrust himself forward and up, ripped his gun from his holster, crossed the flashlight over his wrist. Vincent was on his hands and knees, up against the wall just the other side of the doorframe. Under the curtain of hair and black of the leather, something was shifting, shaking. It was his shadow that manifest change first, an eruption of vertical bones that knifed out all along his spine, threw unspeakable and exaggerated shadows. And more; horns and spines and--

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was up; that thing that had stolen Vincent from him was up, dark wet fur, claws, so many teeth. Veld didn't have time to absorb what he saw, make sense of anything. It turned to face him, the skull of a giant wolf or a bull or some awful mishmash of beast, nothing, nothing human. And it’s eyes, like a goat but glowing, a luminance of red that pierced across the dark. It screamed, screeching; but also some low rumble, braying, so many sounds from so many creatures and worse… worse… he thought he could hear Vincent somewhere inside screaming too.

 

It was enormous, a hulking, massive, towering thing. It rammed the doorframe with its head and horns, sent down a rain of crumbling stones from the ceiling. Veld shot a look behind him, knew damn well he was trapped. There was only one way in and out of the basement, and that horrible thing between. It twist its head sideways, smashed and thrashed and clawed its way through the door, hindered by its size.

 

Veld ran.

 

The beast’s teeth snapped shut just behind him as he dart past, slapped him with strands of black, wretched smelling drool. Veld nearly toppled onto his face, caught his footing. The creature’s size had made passing through the door difficult, a fact Veld clung to with a desperate hope. The beam of his flashlight bounced wildly against the walls and floor as he ran, a crashing, screeching threat from behind matched every four of his footfalls. He didn’t dare look back when he heard the wood splinter apart and the sound of bone on brick that followed, fast, faster.

 

Veld scrambled up the stairs, two at a time, dizzy from the spiral, disoriented by blind terror.

 

His chest hit first, then his chin, cracked into the soft warped wood. Veld felt himself flip from back to front, the whole of him overturned like a ragdoll by his right leg. He crossed his wrists again, flexed every muscle in his body, orient the gun and flashlight. The monster’s face illuminated in the beam of light revealed bloody fur, exposed bone, lolling tongue and teeth teeth teeth teeth-- it roared again, yanked him downward.  Veld felt the rhythmic strikes from the edge of the steps crack against his shoulders and head as he was dragged. For a moment, the world went black; when his sight came back, it was littered with bursts of white.

 

Veld fired the gun, four rapid shots into the arm of the thing that had his leg. The beast dropped him, recoiled. Disoriented, Veld could only gawk as he tried to focus, tried to make the world stop spinning. The bullet holes bubbled, sucked in on themselves. The only tell he had shot was the smell of gunpowder and the ringing in his ears.  

 

The stagger had won him enough time to flip back over, scramble upright, push, grab, run.

 

The gun had done nothing. And now it was _angry_.

 

Veld fell to his knees when he reached the top of the stairs, crawled across the threshold of what had once been Lucrecia’s bedroom. He slammed the metal basement door shut, ripped down the iron latch to bar the door. It was only a matter of seconds until the entire door bowed outward, cracked the bricks holding the frame.

 

Veld’s chin was bleeding, leaked a ribbon of scarlet into the hairs of his goatee. His vision was edged with dark, a vignette of shadow that pulsed as wild as his heartbeat. He forced himself to crawl a bit more, forced himself to stand, stumbled into a limping run. The metal door crashed away from the brick and to the floor, spilled the beast out behind it.

 

Veld tried to run faster, a stabbing so white hot in his side and lungs he couldn’t inhale. Out into the hallway, he collapsed against the grand staircase’s railing, leaned over it and slid.

 

It rushed the upper balcony, threw itself over the railing. It landed on all fours as Veld hit the bottom step, spun round to face him. And then it stood, stretched itself to it’s full height. In the light of the moon, the beast looked even more horrific than it had in the darkness. Some unearthed rotten monstrosity, skeletal in some parts, excessive muscle in others.

 

Veld hugged the dark wooden wall of the staircase, sprint along it and then to the left. Back toward the parlor. In his frenzy, he almost didn’t notice that the thing had stopped chasing. He could hear it, it’s long and deep throaty growls, each one loud enough to shiver the crystal of the chandeliers. For whatever reason, it had slowed it’s movement, took slow, lumbering steps.  

 

The realization frightened him more than the chase had. It was _hunting_.

 

_Thinking._

 

Veld collapsed in the corner of the parlor, dragged himself under the piano. He forced himself to breathe, swallowed gagging, gulping breaths. Veld closed his eyes, tried to block out the noise of the thing coming closer, crossing into the room. Searching.

 

He cringed as the beast swiped downward against the piano, a cacophony of dissonance, the snap of piano-wire and splitting wood; sent the sheet music fluttering to the floor. Veld kicked the bench as hard as he could into the monster, an attempt to distract it enough to flee.

 

It swat the bench across the room, smashed to pieces against the wall, sent the contents scattering. Something silver caught the moonlight as it spilled onto the floor.

 

Veld recognized it immediately, even in his panic. It was a small metal pendant in the shape of the Cerberus. Without even thinking, he grabbed it. 

 

It was Vincent’s.

 

And that thing… that thing…

 

The first time Veld had ever met Vincent Valentine was in a holding cell. The gangly boy was nothing but elbows and knees and a thick mess of unruly hair. He was fifteen and covered in blood. None of it belonged to him. Veld had asked him why he did it, turned around to leave when he got no answer.

 

Vincent leapt at Veld from behind, swung his cuffed wrists over Veld’s head in an attempt to garrotte. In half a heartbeat, Veld had the boy pinned beneath him, one knee in the center of his lower back. Veld grabbed a fistfull of his hair, yanked back his head. Vincent writhed beneath him, face all red and full of snot and tears. “ _I asked you a question_ ,” Veld gave the boy’s head a firm shake.

 

Spit spattered from Vincent’s swollen wet lips when he answered through clenched teeth, an answer Veld had never expected.

 

Veld grabbed Vincent by the chin with his free hand, twist his head to the side. _“Look at me,”_ he dipped his head down, cheek to cheek with the boy. “ _I’m not afraid of you_.”

 

In it all, the noise and the stench and the chaos, Veld stood. The bold move seemed only to enrage the monster further, expressed its ire with an earsplitting roar. Veld’s hair was blown back by the display, the thing’s breath hot and wet and rotten on his face.

 

And when he spoke, somehow, from somewhere, it was with the same authoritative, stern compassion he had used all those years ago. “...I’m not afraid of you.”

 

The monster clamped its jaws shut mere inches from Veld’s chest, raked its claws to rip curls of the wooden floor, screeched.

 

And then it stepped backward, a stunned sway until it collapsed.

 

Veld watched in shock and awe as the thing’s body pulled and distort into itself, as the scabby black fur smoothed into flesh, as the limbs twisted and shrunk, a glass doll shattering in reverse. Until the thing was gone, until most horrible of all, it was Vincent Valentine once again.

 

Veld lunged forward, slid on his knees up against him. He tried to clear the mess of tangled hair from Vincent’s face, see what was left. The straps of the strange leather suit he wore had ripped open, revealed his torso. Vincent’s chest was roped with thick, bulky scars; most notably a Y incision from collarbone to navel, a cut used most frequently for autopsies. Veld’s stomach pit when he saw something so familiar he had almost lost the ability to notice it, the ShinRa logo, carved directly over Vincent’s heart. Next to it, in the nape of his chest, a bullet hole.

 

Veld ran his fingertips along the outline, spread his hand over the lesions. Vincent’s skin was ice cold and still, no sign of breath, no hope of heartbeat. Veld let out a little whimper as he tugged Vincent into his lap, held him, rocked on his haunches. “I’m so sorry, Vince. I’m so sorry.”

 

Veld worked his legs out from under himself, huddled to the floor, stared at the wounded wood. His thoughts were coming so quickly he couldn’t grasp them, all a blur and sometimes nothing at all. The only thing clear was a seething, building rage. He didn’t mind it; it blot out the sorrow. Vincent had asked him once, in the back of a surveillance van, if he’d rather burn to death or drown. Burn, Veld had said. In the flames, as your flesh melts from your bones, it would hurt so bad you'd forget you’re in them at all.  

 

Veld’s face snapped upward, wondered if his mind was playing tricks on him, if he had hit his head harder than he thought. He swore he could hear Vincent muttering, but his body was limp and lifeless. Veld sat up, worked away the last of the hair from Vincent’s face. To Veld’s surprise, it was no hallucination. “Vince…? Vincent?”

 

Vincent's lips were moving, his voice too soft to make out the mess of words. Veld leaned in, listened.

 

_kill me_

 

_Kill me, kill me, kill me, killme, killmekillmekill--_

 

Veld sat up straight, shook his head. “How… how are you…?!”

 

“I _can’t_. I can’t. I can’t die. I try. I _try_ , I--”

 

“Stop. I’m taking you back to Midgar. My leg is fucked up, so it will be slow, but I’mna haul you outta here.”

 

“No, nononono-- can’t-- I don’t want to… I don’t want to hurt anybody... I can’t, I can’t, I can’t help it, I-- monster, I’m a monster, I’m a---”

 

“What _happened_ to you?”

 

“Me. Me. I… This… this body. Is a p-p-punishment. For my… m-my… sins.”

 

“I’m going to make that motherfucker fix you, and then I’m going to peel all his fucking skin off, keep him alive for six years of lye baths and salting. _Then_ he dies. A thousand deaths. I’ll kill him, bring him back, and kill him again.”

 

“No, no, please-- j-j-j- leave me, just leave me here-- … I don’t… d-d-- I can’t help it, I can’t stop it, I-I-I...”

 

Veld looked down, raked his eyes up and down Vincent’s form, an assessment of the extent of it all. He understood. Vincent wasn’t wrong. Veld had seen for himself that whatever he was now could not die; how dangerous it was. Hiding away in the basement had been the moral choice, the _right_ one, a fact that upset and twist in places Veld couldn’t name. Taking him out of the mansion was too risky, for himself and everyone else.  It hurt more than he had expected, to see someone he loved in so much pain; the knowledge there was little to do to ease it. Unless…

 

He eased Vincent to the floor, stood. Vincent coiled into himself, a little ball. “I’ll... be right back. I promise. You stay right here. Did you hear me? Don’t… just... “ Veld cringed, lost the rest of his words, turned to a limped journey to the main double doors.

 

Back in the village, Veld shattered the glass of the door to the sundry shop with an elbow, reached in to unlock the door. After a quick search he found the store’s medical supplies beneath the counter, tore through the potions and ethers, a box of tranquilizers at the back. He ripped the tape off the box, rummaged through. Twenty canisters of tranquilizer were stacked inside, each enough for thirty single use vials. Veld tossed a handful of syringes atop the box, lift it all with a grunt.

 

Vincent was not in the parlor where Veld had left him. Veld was not happy about returning to the basement, made a conscious choice of annoyance to blot out fear. His heart hammered with every step, intensely listening for any sound at all. He found Vincent in the basement storeroom, where he had lay himself in one of the boxes. Vincent appeared to have refastened all the straps of his leather suit, cloaked himself in the tatters of a garment Veld recognized as Grimoire's trademark crimson coat.

 

Veld kept his eyes fixed on his friend, watching for any twinge of unnatural movement. “I told you to stay where I left you.”

 

Vincent didn’t answer. He had never before disobeyed. 

 

Veld frowned, something sad. "I don’t know if this will work, but it's the only thing I can think of. Got enough tranqs here to kill off all of Sector Six. Give you some respite… keep everyone safe while I figure out how to fix you.” Veld sat on the floor next to the box, emptied the canisters into the syringes. Neither of them spoke. Veld worked away the leather collar of Vincent’s suit, slid the needle into his artery, pushed in the plunger. “If Hojo can’t… maybe Gast...”

 

The mention of Gast seemed to upset Vincent; a shudder, both hands to his face, one of flesh and one of metal.  “He-- he... he... I-I-I-I didn’t… I tried… it’s all my fault, it’s all my fault, it’s all my--”

 

“Hey. Hey, shhh-- Stop." Veld set down the spent syringe, picked up another. "...I know... what happened. I know about you and Lucrecia and your kid, Vince.”

 

Vincent turned away, cupped his face. "I killed her."

 

“You didn't killer her." Veld's response tumbled hard, all his words piled atop each other.  Hojo had said, more than once, that Lucrecia had died in childbirth. Gast had not provided any conflicting information. And as untrustworthy as Hojo was, that part at least made sense. Veld remembered when Felicia was born, how scared he was. Not only for his daughter, but that the baby might cost him his wife. But Felicia's birth was uneventful and easy and happy. Vincent's guilt was logical, even if it was misplaced. "...It’s not your fault, okay? It's not your fault.” Veld moved in for another injection, something gentle. Merciful.

 

Veld frowned as Vincent began to shake beneath him, shudders that turn into racks of silent sobs.  When Vincent had first started his training with the ShinRa, he cried all the time, at everything. When he failed a test, when someone scolded him, and sometimes, for no reason at all. Veld had been proud of him when he finally stopped crying, when he had learned to contort his emotions to smooth, polished stone.

 

But in the moment, Veld realized Vincent's wildfire of feelings had never ceased. Just… transferred into something else, something far more dangerous.

 

Vincent surprised him when he spoke, a choke of a question he couldn’t finish. “Is he…”

 

Veld frowned. _He’s terrifying. A fucking monster. A freak. A weapon. Everything about him is wrong. He’s been pumped full of so much mako he glows in the dark._ Another syringe, slowly, as Veld considered. “...He looks just like you, man. It’s crazy. Pretty hair and all.”

 

Vincent let out a blubbering gasp, a noise that sounded like grief, like amusement, like relief, like loss.

 

“He…” Veld swapped the spent syringe for the final one. “He’s... a good kid, Vince. He’s smart, and brave and… normal.”

 

Vincent let his hand fall away from his face. His expression was shattering, clear that the lies provided far more relief than the drugs ever could.  

 

“You know how I know?”

 

Was this... right?

 

“He uh… Hojo... ShinRa... they didn’t… want him. He’s a normal kid. Just a normal, healthy kid. They had no use for him. I took one look at him, and I knew he was yours. So he... he lives with me and Gen and Feli. We got a big house in Kalm, yard, trees. I know it’s not the same, but… Someday, when he's older... Uncle Veld will tell 'em what a pretty, stuck up snob his dad was." Veld forced a smile, but did not look at him. "No. You can tell him yourself, after I find a way to fix you. So hang in there, okay? Just... a bit more.”

 

If his lies helped so much, why did they hurt so badly? Vincent looked tired, and so very lost.

 

“He’s a happy, healthy, loved little boy. And he…” Veld sighed heavily, saved the one truth for last, words that ached in a way he had never felt before. He finally allowed his eyes to meet Vincent's, kept them there, a hope, an apology. “He really likes… snowboarding.”

 

 

†††

  
  
  
Veld paused on the stoop of the ShinRa mansion, looked up into all the stars, let the night breeze ruffle through his hair. Halfway to his car he stopped to turn back. Veld wandered into the abandoned garden, picked a handful of wild flowers. Weeds, mostly; like the ones once woven into Vincent's hair. He crouched to lay them just inside the foyer. “Sorry I didn’t approve your budget request,” Veld shoved his hands in his pockets as he stood, rubbed the metal of the Cerberus emblem in his palm, gave a nod into the darkness. “You were right. ...This is a dismal fucking place.” He turned away from the house and all of its secrets, wished he could feel something other than numb.


	16. A Lingering Ache

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many apologies for my absence. I have not forgotten this story, nor do I have any intention of abandoning it. They say life imitates art; and here this is so very true, the themes of this series are pulled from a very personal and very currently relevant place. I have had to focus /all/ of my attention elsewhere. 
> 
> It may be slower going for a while, and I am very sorry. Thanks for your patience, and know that I /will/ finish this series... it is more important to me to do so than anyone could realize.

“Bssssssssss!”

 

Hojo arched a brow, pulled back the flimsy white mylar of the shower curtain. “What is it that you are doing in there?”

 

Sephiroth’s small voice, even shouted, was somewhat obscured by the sound of the shower. “I AM THE GREAT LEVIATHAN! PPPPSSSS!!”

 

“Stop playing. Time to get out.”

 

“I AM THE GREAT LEVIATHAN! RETURN MY SCALES OR I WILL BRING A TIDAL WAVE TO SWALLOW YOUR VILLAGE!”

 

Hojo reached into the stall, twist the shower knob until the water sputtered and stopped. He passed a towel through the curtain, annoyed. “Out.”

 

Sephiroth emerged dripping, draped in the towel. He sulked. “Nobody would tell _Leviathan_ to stop playing.”

 

“Leviathan isn’t real. Who told you about Leviathan?” Hojo pulled down another towel from the bar, tossed it atop Sephiroth’s head and rubbed it dutifully.

 

“I saw it. In a book. A great big book about summons!” Sephiroth squirmed out from under the towel, pulled coils of stringy white hair away from his eyes. “A big book by Grim-bore Valentine.”

 

Hojo frowned. One of the newer techs must have brought that up from the library; the boy could not read, and must have assumed the illustrations would interest him. They clearly had, as Sephiroth must have accessed the subject in his digital classroom, clicked on the pictures and heard their descriptions. “Yes, very boring indeed. Did you look up the summons in your classroom?”

 

Sephiroth shrugged. “I like SHIVA. Did you know that she’s the goddess of snowboarding?!”  

 

Hojo shook his head, gestured to the scale near the sink. “Climb on. The summons are not real. Not in the way you are thinking. They are folk tales, Sephiroth. Stories. It is true that very skilled materia users are able to ‘summon’ them, but it isn’t what it seems.”

 

Sephiroth stood on the scale, waited, hopped off.

 

“The materia combines with the caster’s understanding of these stories, and thus creates a projection. This is why summons vary by culture. A caster isn’t really calling forth these fabled creatures, just manifesting an idea of them. Of course, people are too stupid to understand this. Many believe they are actually able to summon ancient fictional beings to do their bidding. You see? The world is full of idiots. Comb your hair or it will dry in knots. I set the comb out for you on the sink.”

 

Sephiroth stood on his toes, smeared his palm across the fogged surface of the mirror. He stared into the space of clarity he had created, gently touched the side of his nose. It had a severity to it, especially at the tip. Full, wide lips and the makings of a strong narrow jaw beneath his baby face. Hojo frowned from behind him, frowned as he watched the boy’s focus shift just away from his own reflection. Sephiroth’s attention had moved to Hojo, locked eyes in the surface of the mirror. Those big, eerie eyes; watching. Studying. Thinking. Drips of unused water plopped down onto the tile of the shower floors, spattered apart loud and fat.

 

Hojo did not like to be looked at in such a way, _examined_. Lucrecia had looked at him like that; thoughtful, curious. As if he had been an enigma to her, a challenge. Not a peer, not a husband.

 

“Professor?” Sephiroth turned, tilt back his head to look into Hojo’s face through the lingering steam. At the rounded and flat downturn of the man’s nose, at his thin, stern lips.

 

_Gods and Gaia, you look just like your father._

 

Hojo glanced down to his clipboard, made another notation concerning the boy’s weight. “Mmm?”

 

Sephiroth hesitated.

 

_Drip, drip, drip, plop._

 

“...Are you my dad?”

 

Hojo swung the clipboard in reflex, a hard wide arc.

 

The crack of wood and metal against flesh echoed off the tile, punctuated by the clatter as the board fell to the floor, as the pen skittered and rolled beneath the sink. He had hit Sephiroth so hard he knocked him sideways and down.

 

Hojo stepped back. A wide, thoughtless stride.

 

He was stunned, taken by his own actions. Physical confrontation was beneath him. He had only ever struck one other; the boy's father.

 

Perhaps that is why he hit him, because the boy's question was as valid as it was hurtful, as ugly as it was fair. Perhaps it was because he had looked like his father when he asked it, so sullen and hopeless and _weak_.

 

_Why so timid, boy?! What are you afraid of?! Is that idea so repulsive, so frightening?!_

 

Remorse flood Hojo as the boy held his small hands to his small cheek, wore a small look of wounded betrayal. Hojo almost knelt, took him in his arms, embraced him in apology for all the things he could not know, wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t, couldn’t know. No, no. No. Instead, he shoved a gnarled finger between the boy's unnaturally glowing green eyes.

 

"What are you, a _child?_!"

 

The boy blinked. He could have killed Hojo if he wanted to, they both knew. Crushed his throat, squeezed the life from him with his small fingers. But a child he was, a little boy. As loyal and loving and eager to please as his father had been. "...No, Professor."

 

Hojo straightened. "You are nothing of the sort. You are no stupid, silly child. You have no business asking stupid, silly questions. You are _Sephiroth_ . And you will _never_ ask me that again."

 

Sephiroth knew he should stand. No SOLDIER would allow himself to crumple to the floor like a clipboard or a pen. But he did not get up.

 

Hojo could not stand it. He reached down, tucked his hands under the boy’s bare arms and hoisted him to his feet.

 

_Cry!_

 

Hojo did not let go of him once he was up, just held him, onto him, kept him. His grip tightened, tighter, tighter still.

 

_Weep and blubber and whine like your over dramatic, manipulative whore of a mother! Be dissapointed, be angry! Do something, anything, other than..._

 

But there were no tears at all. Sephiroth’s face was eerily vacant. There was a hurt there, just beneath, something hidden. And this bothered Hojo most of all. It shouldn’t have. This is what Hojo himself had built Sephiroth to be.

 

“Why would you ask me that?”

 

“My friend said--”

 

“Friend! There are no such things!”

 

All the sweet, cautious optimism had drained from Sephiroth’s voice. “--looked just like… my father.”

 

Hojo stood, tugged at the bottom of his lab coat, smoothed it against his thighs. “Since you care so damn much; Your mother was a very special and beautiful woman named Jenova who died giving birth to you. The man that provided my research with your genetic material was a criminal-- a common thug. It does not matter, do you understand? All that matters is _what you are_ .  Wait, what _friend_ told you this?!” Hojo’s heart was pounding, desperately thankful for the ledge of logic to grab hold of. Veld had become suspicious, but it was sudden after six years of nothing; and if had been Veld that had been the one to suggest to Sephiroth that he looked like his father, he would have said so. There was only one other in the entire world who could have possibly known.

 

Sephiroth took a timid backstep. Meekly shook his head.

 

“Was this the one who spoke to you about summons? Brought you that book?” Something changed in Hojo’s voice, something hungry, not hurt.

 

Sephiroth nodded.

 

“When did you speak to… your _friend_? When I was away?”

 

Again, Sephiroth nodded.

 

“And what else did they say?”

 

“He asked me… if I heard voices. About materia-- Professor, please! Don’t get him into trouble!”

 

Hojo smiled.

 

“You can’t get him in trouble, he promised me he’d take me snowboarding! He _promised_!” Sephiroth knit his fingers together, bent them against themselves.

 

"Ah. Your promises. Of course." Hojo dropped to one knee, crossed his arms over it, bent in. “Did this friend of yours have glasses, like me?”

 

Sephiroth nodded, this time sternly. The professor’s smile was comforting; angry people who wanted others in trouble didn’t smile. “We’re going to go snowboarding, and I’mna do a double cork like Johnny X, he said that where he lives there is lots of snowboarding and he’s gunna get me my own snowboard just like Johnny X. And... teach me.” Sephiroth spoke cautiously, his usual enthusiasm wounded beneath the dull ache in his face.

 

Hojo nodded slowly, a grateful understanding. “I see. That is very exciting to you, isn’t it?”

 

Sephiroth stared. He was used to being hurt; he was hurt all the time. Being injured was part of being a SOLDIER. But Hojo’s hit hurt in a different way, a lingering, itchy, suffocating hurt that gnawed through his whole body and didn’t fade like the sharp throb in his cheek.

 

“You did very well, telling me the truth. I am very proud of you.” Hojo extended his hand, cupped the boy’s face. As if an act of gentleness could negate one of violence.

 

Sephiroth stood motionless, obedient. Hojo stroked Sephiroth’s cheek with the side of his thumb. He paused as the glowing green of Sephiroth’s irises muted down into hazel, and from nowhere, the child spoke words that were not his own. “He isn’t a _thing_ , he’s a _him_!”

 

Hojo froze.

 

“And what if… what if everything works out? Will you love him? Will you have any attachment to him at all? What if he is born healthy, and he is a normal, happy child?”

 

Hojo withdrew his hand, stood. _I’m so sorry, Lu._

 

“…Then we shouldn’t have done this at all.” The answer was the same he had given when Lucrecia herself had asked, the thing the boy now echoed without knowing. The answer was as firm and mournful and sincere as it had always been; it had never changed.


	17. An Eye for an Eye

Iflana's eyes were fixed on the face of her sleeping infant, nestled between herself and her husband. An out of focus stare, a blurry, far away idle gaze.

 

Aeris, they had named her. A beautiful, tiny girl with a full head of downy dark golden hair. She was small but resilient. Even in her first few days of life she rarely cried, instead she watched the world with a wide eyed wonderment; the way her mother watched her now.

 

Would she understand? The price? That such a foul thing had been done, must be undone. And it was no longer one for one. The price of the one was the sum of all.

 

Iflana moved a bit of the baby's hair behind her tiny ear. _Please forgive me, precious girl. This isn't about you, and you have no choice, do you? The choice was made by others and it is you who must answer._

 

Gast's breaths were audible but soft, a deep and contented sleep. He had first been comforted by the research he retrieved from the ShinRa building, poured over it all in its new context; as a father. Even more comforting was his daughter's relatively easy birth, and her obvious vigor. A human and a cetra, a perfect and healthy baby girl. All piled into a bed in a cozy little house nestled in the northern mountains. And from somewhere within the howl of the wind, or the bones of the trees, or the very mountains themselves, Iflana heard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ä̶̢̛͈̬̹̹̝̙̙͈̝͍́̓̈̓̓͘͠ͅ ̸̧͔̞̙̟̲͗͌̉̆̏̒̀̎̾̀͊̓͝͝͝Ṡ̷̠͊͌͂̚I̸̢̻̙̝̹͉̙͙̮̫̎̽̐̉͛͒̈́̅̆̔̑͗͜͠C̴̢̺̩̦̘͚̞͋͐̓̓̾̒̅̈́Ķ̶̛̛͓̭̖̫̱̮͍̏̈͛̎̈́͊̅̾̍̂̕͜͝Ṅ̵͚̫̹̩͓̲̯̆̇̈́̽̿̄̽̀̀̌͋̚͝Ě̴̢̩̼͍̦͖̫͚̲̣͔̠̤̆͂̾̏̋̋͆͜S̷̨̖̠̓̈́̊͝S̸̨̢̛̫̹͍̝̪̱̥̜̩̼̫̃̒̿̓̐̃̊̍̈́̑ ̶̧̡̦͔̬̤͚̝͕̱̝͕͔̠̹̒̽̐͝͝  
̶̛̦̮͍̼̮̌̋̈́͌͑͑̾̂͘͘  
̴̡̝̗̟͖͓͎͖̞̲̝̥̒͐͜A̵̢̰̯͓͚̪̩͐̒̈́ ̴̧̤̟̘͆͆̐͊͐͌̂̉͆̌͝D̷̯̲̀I̴̯͎̜̬͕̺̻̜̙͇̜̜̪̻̓͋̓̄̈̑͗̉͑͋̌͌͘S̷̞͉͔͖̪͇̺̆̎̾͊̎̂͌̋͘Ě̴̠̫̪̜̞̫̓̕A̴̺̱̳͈̗̪̥̿̑̉͗͝S̷̢͇͕̹̞͓̰̞̆͜Ȩ̸̪̺̖  
̴̧̧̤͚̤͙̳̉̓͛̒̽̒̎̈́̽̍̃͘͜͝  
̶̛̣͓̩̑̍̾̓̾̾͛̊̽A̷̛͙͖͛̇̆͗͊͊͆͛̾L̷̡̤̾̂̾̿̄̄̔͘͠͠L̷̨͕͔̙̲̮͉̗͖̹͓͙͇̟͌̐͌͗̏̇̔̄̔̽͗̊͐͛̔ͅ ̵̡̢̡̡̡̩̮̲̫̜̪̟̮̺͒̽͛͂͗̈́́̑̽͝M̶͕̜͍͎̾̔Ű̴̧̞̞̯̮̯̝͈̞͎̹͔̦́̓̈́̍͌̄̇͊̀̓͋̕͜͝ͅŞ̴̻͎̹͈̱͎̰̯͖̠̠̩̽̑̄̅͂͂̊͝ͅŢ̴̡̨̧̦̟̼̩̭͙̭̞͎̇̾̿͂͑̎̌͆͌̈́̄̂̐̀̕͜ ̵͔̰͔̳̗̩̬̈́͜D̶̡̛̛͔̟̪̟̠̙̺̺͑̿͆̈̽͒̇̉Į̷̝͖͔̮̜̫̱̹̥̰͚̺̗͐̂̈́́̏͆̉̾͝͝ͅĚ̸̬̬̱͆̓̌̓͋̊͗̏̆̈́̾

 

 

 

Iflana lift her husband's sleeping hand, laid it gently over their child's chest. She allowed herself to linger in the moment, until she knew she could not. She squeezed her fingers around his palm, and again. "Wake now." Gast opened one eye, squint through the haze of sleep."Wh… Aeris… is Aeris okay?” Iflana smiled at him from across their daughter, squeezed his hand again, a sad, small smile. It did not last.

 

An ancient language made it easier, the words did not matter. It was only the sentiment that did, and that, even that, was meaningless. “Id air daina. Arr dhed air wsulr wairr fa nena sairhd. …I'n russirr.”

 

Gast sat up, felt along the darkness for the bedside lamp, twist it on. "Iflana...?"

 

Voices.

 

Several. Footfalls, crunching snow. And, pounding, pounding against the cottage door.

 

Gast swung his legs over the side of the bed, collect his glasses and slid them over his ears. "Who...?"

 

Iflana lift her sleeping daughter, scoot against the wall.

 

Gast stood, held a hand up to his wife, a gesture to stay. He crept to the fireplace, grabbed a woodaxe, twist his hands around the grip. Steam knocked through the radiator, punctuated by the pounding at the door. It was not a knocking of request, it was a statement of intent. And when the door burst inward, let in a gust of icy air and a swirl of snow, it was no longer a statement. Three uniformed men piled into the small house, a semi circle behind one.

 

Hojo's lips peeled away from his small, straight teeth. It was a smile of sincerity, of happiness. There was very little that made Hojo happy. "Hello, my friend."

 

Gast's face fell.

 

 

A twisted, mindless monstrosity in a reactor.

Vincent's bloody hands and tearful dark eyes, his desperate pleas for help.

A gun pushed into the swell of Lucrecia's belly, a trigger he could not pull.

And Jenova, with her gaping grin and her one horrible eye, so clean and crisp and dead in her tank.

 

 

He had ran, ran and ran and ran and ran and... "No!" Gast raised his axe, unsure, his movements slowed by the crash of his fear. But he would not run. Not this time. 

 

Hojo shrugged. Nonchalant. "Shoot him."

 

The three men raised their rifles.

 

Iflana screamed.


	18. A Matter of Perspective

 

 

 

Veld opened his hand, looked at the patinated metal in his palm. He stared long enough that his eyes gave up their focus, lost himself to a memory and the pound in his temples.

 

 

_The sweltering air inside hit Veld in the face, something that felt like peeking into an oven. But it didn’t smell of pies, or a roast, or some sentimental thing that now burned and blurred homesick in his eyes. Incense. Hazy, heavy and heady. And the unmistakable, undeniable scent of sex._

 

_Sweat, salt. Cloying. Shame? No, no shame whirled around with the spins of alcohol. Besides, Veld wasn’t there for himself. Just business. Sort of._

 

_A long legged woman crossed and uncrossed her long, long legs. “…A Turk .”_

 

_She could have said: A challenge . A game . A joke . Maybe she had. Maybe she had said all of those things by calling it simply what it was. Veld hated her, this woman he did not know; who certainly seemed to know him. He swat something imagined away from his face._

 

_Several more woman pushed out through the curtains, through ropes of beads and plush dusty velvets. They smiled at him, some waved, some giggled. One cracked her gum, didn’t bother to get up._

 

_“Ima… Ima… marry–” Veld swung out his hand, a palm against the wall. A cool, collected lean; a suave pose. Not some worthless drunk collapsing in on himself. Would they like pens? He had half a box of plastic ShinRa logo pens in his inside pocket. Everyone likes pens._

 

_One of the girls swished over to him, slipped an arm around his waist. A mousy brunette thing, too young.  “You will be, if you pick me,” she smirked._

 

_“–Married man.” Veld finished triumphantly, gave his chest a thump; nothing enough to shoo away the little brown mouse though, he was sure of that. “I’m not a Turk… right now. Off duty. Ahh… An’ I’m not here for me, I’m looking for my… friend.”_

 

_The girls paused, swapped looks. Some shared thing, some clear and concise secret meaning, a language so obvious and simple and inaccessible. One of them flushed, a bright, freckled pink._

 

_“Tall guy.” Veld lift up his hand, a head over his own, an approximation of height. “Skinny. Really stupid hair. Doesn’t say much. Looks like this.” He tugged a fistfull of his own hair down to cover half of his face, slumped his shoulders and made a serious, brooding face._

 

_Some of the women laughed, a few shook their heads, rolled their eyes. “Valentine,” the one with too much leg said. She said Vincent’s name in the same way she had said ‘Turk.’ Or had he imagined it? “He isn’t here.”_

 

_She stood, shrugged up the faux fur collar of her silver silken robe. “And it is for the best.”_

 

_Veld looked to the part of the mousey girl’s hair, her arms still around his waist. He resist the urge to plant a kiss atop her head. Nothing sexual, not even in a whore house. Just… lonely, maybe. Instead he straightened, pushed off against the wall, moved the girl’s arms away. Now he hated her, too. “Aw, for fuck’s… he… do something?”_

 

_Veld surveyed the faces dotting the red and purple silks, the worn rugs hung to strategically cover windows. One of the girls chuckled. “Do something? I guess that depends on if you call all of us things… and how many times.”_

 

_“He’s creepy ,” another scoffed, slipped back behind a curtain of beads._

 

_“Hey now,” Veld held up a hand, a big meaty strong thing, opened and closed his fingers, watched the tendons move on the back. “I know what you’re thinkin’. This guy cuts up women and puppies and makes them into dolls and has tea parties with ‘em in his mom’s basement.”_

 

_Veld dropped his hand, let it swing. “Well it’s not true. He is a perfect gentleman.” Veld frowned, felt it stuck there, etched in. He rubbed at the corners of his lips and chin, even dragged his palm over his numb lips._

 

_Where the hell had that come from? And why? Veld had always been the hero, a good son, a good student, good and serious at sports. More than anything, he had been good at his job. Not only was he good at it, he was proud of it. Everyone wanted him. More of him. Save the team, Veld. Spend more time with me, Veld. You’re the only one for that promotion, Veld. They all wanted him. Even the little mouse-whore who kept putting her arms around him. Even Vincent, with his stupid fucking hair and his stupid fucking yes sir, yes sir, yes sir…_

 

_Nobody wanted Vincent. Veld had looked it up Vincent's file before taking him for the Turks, in Grimoire’s files too just to be sure. Read about Vincent’s mother and the pillow with the moons and stars on the case; how he had been without oxygen for six minutes. Everyone thought he was so fucking stupid. Maybe he was. Maybe it was ǝƃɐɯɐp uᴉɐɹq. Nobody knew what to do with him, that broken, weepy, heart-ache of a boy. And even though Veld had turned him into a perfect Turk, a perfect employee and a perfect subordinate and, not to forget, a perfect shot– Vincent made everyone uncomfortable wherever he went. Too stiff, too mechanical. Other, and unwanted._

 

_Veld wondered if it wasn’t just some oxygen deprived brain cells that had died; but if Vincent had died too and by some cruel joke his body went on ahead without him inside. Cold hearted, wind-up boy.  The leggy woman had said ‘ Turk ’ in a way that meant ‘ not wanted,’ and Veld, for a moment, understood what exactly that meant._

 

_“A perfect fucking gentleman,” Veld repeated, angry now. Angry enough to swat the whore’s hand away when she reached a final time. Angry enough that the alcohol didn’t seem so welcome and warm._

 

_“Oh, he is.” Legs said, took a few strides closer. Veld decided she looked like a spider. “He says nothing; and when he does, it is nothing but quiet manners. He is the most polite man to ever cross that threshold, and when he does-- frequently-- he pays more than he is charged.”_

 

_“So what’s your problem?”_

 

_“We see a lot of people in here.” Legs pushed at the cuticle of her thumb with a red ringfinger nail. “The loud ones, the vulgar ones,” she raked her eyes from Veld’s shoes to his nose and back again, “they make a lot of noise. Most of the time, that is all it is. Noise. What you see is what you get. I know what you boys do for a living. And I know what I do for mine. The suits, the pomp, the strutting. That is all fine of you. Polish hiding the more... unscrupulous duties of your job. But he isn’t like you… is he?”_

 

_“You’re right,” Veld spat, with the defensive pride of a father. “He’s nothing like me.”_

 

_“I wonder, Turk. What is all that quiet hiding?”_

 

_Veld stopped trying to conceal his frown. He wanted to say ‘you’re wrong,’ but he knew better, same as her. Instead, he reached into his inner jacket pocket and handed the woman a fistfull of ShinRa Electric Power Company pens, turned to push back into the loud, filthy streets of Wall Market._

 

†††

 

 

_“Vince!!”_

 

_Vincent’s chin snapped up in response to his name. He scanned the swarm of bodies pushing through the market from atop a stack of discarded boxes. Veld waved with both arms, pushed through the chaotic flow. Vendors shouted their wares, customers argued and bartered. Even in the middle of the night, there were people everywhere. Overpopulation; and the lack of sunlight meant a world where the waking rhythm was one of simple survival. The smell of rotten fish and garbage and steam waft on the artificial breeze, born of the massive churning metal fans set at either side of Sector Six. Some of these people had never seen the sun, never looked up into a sky of something other than steel sheets and beams._

 

_Veld elbowed and squirmed between shoulders and backs, draped his arm around Vincent’s shoulders, an anchor._

 

_“I was lookin’ for you everywhere .”_

 

_Vincent raised a sleek, dark eyebrow. He staggered a bit under the sink of the other man’s leaning weight. Vincent pulled his pager out of his pocket, held it under Veld’s nose._

 

_“I can’t read that,” Veld pushed the pager away, exaggerated._

 

_“It says - Meet at the usual spot.” Vincent read the text dutifully, squint at it for good measure. “It, uh, it actually says ‘dussal9 spot,’ but I knew what you meant.”_

 

_Veld cringed, tapped his fist over his heart, looked pained. “Well, we can’t all be so perfect as you.”_

 

_“I’ve been right here. Usual spot.”_

 

_“I could kick your ass in a heartbeat, and I’m far better looking. And I’m your boss. Don’t ever forget it.”_

 

_“I won’t, sir.” Vincent took a few small, careful steps backward; an attempt to lead Veld out of the stream of people._

 

_“I can cook better than you, too. I’m a great cook.”_

 

_“Great cook, sir.”_

 

_Vincent turned Veld around and slipped out from under his arm. Gave him a gentle push up against the wall, an attempt to keep him steady. Veld locked eyes with his underling, felt his gut churn. Vincent had the eyes of some gentle creature, deep and dark and clear and mournful. They were unsettling and foreign, set behind curtains of thick and oily black lashes. Veld had thought it was their strange coloration that made them seem off. But there in the discord of artificial light, the eeriness of them came from somewhere else.  So many lights, the dim and sickly overhead flood lights in night mode, the red paper lanterns, the flickering, multi colored string lights all wound around the vendor stalls. Everything was too much. Veld shut his own eyes. “Aren’t you going to ask why I paged you? Ask for orders?”_

 

_Vincent stood straight, left Veld to lean against the wall. “I know why you paged me.”_

 

_“Oh, you do? Then you tell me, which of our targets has--”_

 

_“--Your wife kicked you out again.”_

 

_Veld pushed himself off of the wall. “What?! Why the hell would you think that?”_

 

_One corner of Vincent’s lips ticked upward, almost a smirk. Almost. “It’s two in the morning. You’re still in uniform. And you’re drunk. Sofa is already made up for you.”_

 

_“Goddam it!”_

 

_Vincent gestured toward the exit of the market with a nod of his head, stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black denim jeans. When he began to walk, Veld followed._

 

_“Hey, you went shopping. What’s in the bag?”_

 

_“Nothing.”_

 

_“I told you fifteen times not to buy anything from Wall Market. All this shit is counterfeit anyway.” Veld increased his speed, added in commentary as they passed rows of stalls. “Fake, fake, fake, stolen…. fake.”_

 

_Vincent simply shrugged._

 

_Veld made a grab for Vincent’s bag. “What you buy?”_

 

_“Nothing of interest.”_

 

_“Got yourself a sack of dildos.”_

 

_Vincent made a noise of disapproval._

 

_“You are the snobbiest motherfucker I ever met; especially for someone carrying around a sack of knock off dildos. What did you buuuuuuuy?”_

 

_Vincent, without any alteration to his stance or pace, tossed a look over his shoulder, wagged his eyebrows. And for a sliver of that moment on the trail of a joking gesture, Veld saw something resembling a human._

 

_†††_

 

_Vincent’s apartment was a harsh contrast to his physical appearance. It was some shithole over in Sector Two. The landlord called it a one bedroom, but that was as generous as it was par for the course, like all apartments under the plate. Water damaged studio with moldy bathroom and walk in closet that could fit a mattress if you tried hard enough would have been a more accurate description. It wasn’t the musty smell, or the constant scurrying movement caught in peripheral vision that bothered Veld. It was the emptiness ._

 

_Vincent owned a mattress and boxspring, a beat up old upright piano, a coffee pot, a sofa, and a small television. The sofa, as promised, was already made up into a bed. The clean crisp sheets tucked in so neatly and the blanket folded down at one corner looked sad against the dingy room, not welcoming. Veld pulled out of his jacket, unclasped the buckle of his belt, let his pants fall to the floor. He stepped out of them, dropped the suit jacket on top._

 

_Veld collapsed backward onto the sofa, kicked his legs up to drape across the backrest, worked apart the buttons of his dress shirt. Vincent sat on the very edge of the sofa where Veld’s legs would have been if he had laid out straight. “Do you want to talk about it?”_

 

_Veld gave up on the buttons halfway down. “No!”_

 

_Vincent nodded, rubbed his palms against the dark denim on his knees. “Okay.” He stood, started for his bedroom, flicked off the light. “Goodnight, boss.”_

 

_Turning off the overhead light made little difference; there were no curtains on the open windows. A pair of plastic and broken vertical blinds had probably never been shut. Dozens of different colors of neon lights illuminated the room, painted the inside with pulses of blue and red. Distant shouting punctuated the thrum of a window box fan, and somewhere below, someone was whistling._

 

_Both of Veld’s hands hit his face. “She’s going to leave me.”_

 

_Vincent paused, hesitated, his back a silhouette of neon, his hand on the doorframe. He turned to look at Veld, but said nothing._

 

_“I do this… for her. For her and for Felicia. Goddam it, she won’t fucking listen!”_

 

_Vincent’s face was striped red and black by bands of light and shadow from the open blinds. “...Have you tried talking to her sober?”_

 

_Veld pushed himself up. “Oh… don’t you… don’t you start your holier than thou shit on me!”_

 

_Vincent shrugged. “You only drink when you’re upset. And you only drink to get drunk.”_

 

_“Am I not supposed to be upset? I bust my ass, day in, day out. I work myself raw to give them everything they could possibly ever want-- to keep them safe!”_

 

_“They want you , Veld. What do you want?”_

 

_Veld pressed his lips together, blew. Rubbed the heels of his hands against his eye sockets until he saw stars. “A Turk has no business having a family. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I love them, more than anything else in the world. I swear I-- Hey asshole, did you hear me?”_

 

_Vincent raised a brow._

 

_“I’mna make it official policy. Turks can’t get married, and they can’t have kids. Maybe, if you guys make my job easy, we’ll get a communal puppy. We’ll teach him to bite Heidegger in the nuts. What would you name him?”_

 

_“Dog Veld.”_

 

_“Don’t change the subject!” Veld jabbed the air with his finger, a gesture directed at Vincent. “I know you like the ladies, you pervert. The lower half of ‘em, at least. Probably why you live in this dump, all your gil goes to the HoneyBee. You be goddam careful, and don’t go getting attached to anyone, understand?”_

 

_It surprised him; Vincent smirked. “That... you don’t have to worry about.”_

 

_Veld dropped back down, tugged the blankets around himself. “Of course I don’t… it’s you.” The commentary had come out meaner than intended. Vincent, as ever, stood stone faced._

 

_“Have you ever even had a girlfriend?”_

 

_Vincent rubbed the buzzed black hairs at the back of his neck, let his arm drop. “I don't have friends.”_

 

_The comment snapped, something sharp, far more hurtful than it should have been. Veld flopped onto his side. “None?!”_

 

_There was nothing but coldness in Vincent’s response. “You’re my boss. You don’t know me.”_

 

_“I do know you. You think you’re safe in there, all locked away. You think that if you act like a fucking dimwit pretty boy nobody will expect a goddam thing from you. You think that if you keep everyone out you can protect yourself and--”_

 

_“--it’s not me I'm worried about.”_

 

_Veld’s annoyance shifted. His face fell, melted into something far more sympathetic. For a while, he was quiet.  “I wonder, sometimes… if Felicia will hate me. If she’ll hate what I do… what I’ve done. Who I am. Do you…” Veld hesitated, didn’t know how to ask.  “Do you hate... her?”_

 

_Veld hadn’t used her name, or her title. He hadn’t needed to. Vincent knew exactly who Veld was talking about, and the question he was asking._

 

_Vincent grabbed his bag off the counter, reached inside. “Here’s your dildos. Disappointed?” Vincent pulled out a flat piece of silver, the size of a tennis ball. It had been carved into an emblem of the Cerberus. He rounded the sofa, sat on the edge again, turned the emblem over and over in his hands. “It’s the Cerberus. A three headed dog, a creature from the underworld. They say the Cerberus is a guardian of Hell. But is it keeping people in… or out?”_

 

_Veld said nothing, watched Vincent’s face behind the tumble of his thick inky hair._

 

_“It's a matter of perspective then, isn't it?” Vincent held the emblem up for Veld to see. “There are three sides to every story.” Vincent lay the tip of his finger on each of the dog’s heads as he spoke. “What one side says happened, what the other side says happened…” his finger stopped on the middle head, tapped it. “...And what really happened.”_

 

_Vincent stood, stuffed the Cerberus into his pocket. “...It is very easy to hate someone if you are unable to see past your own perspective.”_

 

_Veld wanted to pull Vincent back down on the couch, wrap his arms around him. “That will never be you, Vince. You are the one who gets to--”_

 

_“Do I hate her? ...No. I hate everything." Vincent lift his hand, a timid and gentle wave. "Goodnight, boss.”_

 

_When Veld woke up to the glare of the plate lights in morning mode, to the swell of daytime noise and traffic and the rumbling of the trains, Vincent was gone. A receipt for a delivery of a bouquet of paper roses to the Dragoon residence was tucked under a cold cup of coffee. And Veld’s suit hung on the back of the door, pressed and starched, all the wrinkles ironed out._

 

 

 

Veld carefully tucked the cerberus into his inner pocket, sighed. He opened the car door and stretched until his shoulders popped. He didn’t bother following the gravel path to the front of the house; instead, he went around to the back.

 

Gen was hanging sheets up to dry on a clothesline, her auburn hair licking at her cheeks in the breeze. She paused when she saw a shadow approach, pulled a hanging sheet aside, offered a reserved smile. The bridge of her nose was dusted in freckles, and she was more beautiful in her soapy apron and sloppy bun than any other woman he could think of. The picture of calm simplicity. “Hello, Veld.”

 

“Hi.” Veld glanced around the yard, a nervous search.

 

“It is a surprise to see you. Is there a drug lord hiding in my laundry? I can’t imagine why else...” Gen frowned when she noticed his leg, a darkness and dryness to the fabric below the knee, and the fact he put no weight on it. The scratches on his face and the swell in his cheek became all the more apparent. “What happened to you? Are you on medical leave? Are you--”

 

Veld cut her off. “Can I see my daughter, please?”

 

“Feli…!” Gen shouted back toward the house, returned her attention to the man who used to be her husband with a look of defeated concern.

 

The sound of the screen door opening was all that mattered, and the rush of footfalls that followed. “Dad!” Felicia charged her father, leapt into his arms. “Daddy!!”

 

“Careful Felicia, he’s hurt and--”

 

Veld spun his daughter around, squeezed her so hard she grunted. “--I’m fine. All I needed was to see you! God, how tall are you now, eight feet? Nine? You look more and more like your mom, thank god.”

 

Felicia nuzzled his neck, tugged on his beard. “Dad, I missed you so much! I didn’t think I’d see you!”

 

Veld reeled. “Of course you’d see me. You’ll always see me. I’m not going anywhere, I promise. Hey, you got a birthday comin’ up. What’s the theme this year? Aliens? Chocbos?” Veld sent his wiggling fingers into her side. “Turks?!”

 

A male’s voice cut from behind them, gentle and smooth. “A garden party.”

 

Veld’s face fell, and he turned to face the speaker, Felicia still in his arms.

 

“We’re having a garden party. The girls will get to paint their own tea pots, make paper lanterns, and then we’ll have a puppet show.”

 

Veld looked at the child in his arms, his little tomboy with her always scraped knees and perpetually runny nose. She was wearing a dress, and there were no bandages on her shins. He could feel his heart sink. “A... garden party, huh? Sounds… nice. I was thinkin’ we could go see some monster trucks. There’s this crazy mechanic pit down in Sector…”

 

Gen rolled her eyes, crossed her arms. “You aren’t taking her into the slums, Veld! We moved to Kalm to get away from...”

 

Veld ignored her. “Garden party. I thought you were into... You pick that yourself Feli?”

 

Felicia nodded, smiled at the other man. She had lost a tooth.

 

“You’re welcome to come, of course.” Gen’s new husband was handsome in a quiet way. He looked like a man who had done a lot of honest work, a chef maybe, or a carpenter. “But don’t worry, we completely understand if you can't make it. Nobody is expecting you to show up. Your job, and all. Must be very busy. No pressure.” He extended a big warm hand, and smiled.

 

Veld almost hit him. “Yeah, well… I’m taking a vacation.” He tossed Felica into the air, caught her with a spin, kissed her so hard on the forehead he left a mark. “Today we can play all day.”

  



	19. Arrivals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested Listening [In Stone - Antimatter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzsFOjqz1rY)

 

 

 

Sephiroth was more interested in picking at the edges of an elbow scab, especially the sting and pinch with each tilt of crusty flesh, than eating his lunch. It didn’t matter if he ate it anyway; Professor wasn’t there, and none of Hojo’s assistants or technicians would dare force the consumption of the perfectly measured proportions. Not anymore.

 

Sephiroth shift his focus from his scab to his lunch-tray, balanced a cube of meat on the tip of his butter knife. He used a fingertip to launch the bit of meat across the room and into the masked face of an orderly. Sephiroth positioned another, closed one eye and let go once more. The meat hit the orderly just below the eye, something the man tolerated. He didn’t have much of a choice.

 

Sephiroth swung his leg beneath the table, the other wrapped around the leg of his chair. “Where is Professor?”

 

The man shook his head weakly, kept his hands at his sides. It surprised him that Sephiroth was even bothering to speak, as if for some reason he now expected some sort of response. A rule so long and harshly enforced it wasn’t even thought upon, just enacted. No talking.

 

Sephiroth launched another cube with no trace of amusement or aggression. “When’s he coming back?”

 

This time it was a splat of mashed potatoes, a creamy off white all smeared against the man’s surgical mask. The orderly stood, began to gather up the flatware and tray. Time would soon be up anyway. Sephiroth watched the man’s movements carefully, something predatory. Until the little boy stood, sudden and with violence. The overhead fluorescent lights hummed, caught in the silver threads of Sephiroth’s eyelashes.

 

Sephiroth tilt his head to the side, observant. “What are you, a child?”

 

The orderly’s chin snapped up, but the rest of his body froze. The boy was less than half his height and a fraction of his weight; but everything in that little body was so very, very wrong.

 

Sephiroth’s expression was one of indifference, but his tone was frayed. “You’re no _child_ ,” The translucent hairs on Sephiroth’s arms raised, as well as on the back of his slender little neck, a prickle of skin.

 

Tending to Sephiroth had always been like tending to a dangerous animal… except now it seemed to have gone rabid. The orderly set down the tray in one slow, fluid movement, took a small and cautious step back.

 

“You have no business with your stupid questions,” the boy’s head tilt the other direction for a moment. He began to advance.

 

“I am the great SOLDIER Sephiroth.” Sephiroth followed every movement of retreat from the orderly until they were pressed into the corner of the room, the man’s fingers crawling along the wall for the panic button. “You don’t have a face. And you don’t have any words. You are nobody and you are nothing.”

 

Sephiroth extended his hand to the orderly’s face, tucked his little fingers under the surgical mask, peeled it back. In his other hand he still held the butter knife. The face beneath the mask wasn’t smiley and warm with a nice mustache like Gast’s. The skin was all wrong, all chalky and sick looking, all buggy eyed and clammy, all open mouthed and breathless.

 

“This mask is scared,” Sephiroth looked more curious than anything, with his unblinking impossibly colored eyes. The dull edge of the knife went to the side of the orderly’s face, a slow creep. It wasn’t sharp enough to cut, but Sephiroth had the strength to slough flesh from skull with a scrape. “What does the next one look like?”

 

It was too much. Fight or flight, or the desire to keep living, even if the rest of the living part lost focus in such a decisive burst. The desire to work for the world’s most celebrated scientist, to be ingrained in history altering research of unparalleled importance crumbled beneath that dull edge. A comfortable apartment, bills paid on time, and all that purpose and meaning. Gone. “P...p...please…”

 

Sephiroth blinked, a slow and deliberate shut and open. Two thin hot tears streaked down the orderly’s face, slid along the glint of the knife. Sephiroth recoiled when the wet met his fist, a mixture of awe and disgust. The little boy dropped the knife, shook his hand out, wiped the web of flesh between his thumb and index frantic against his shirt.

 

Movement on the other side of the windows caught his attention, a flurry of activity. Sephiroth scanned the bodies for a gather of slick black hair, a glint off glasses. He charged forward when he found it, yanked open the door and followed the mass of labcoats down the corridor. Sephiroth broke through the wall of staff and skid to a stop, wrapped his arms around Hojo’s leg, buried his face in his thigh.

 

Hojo glanced down, surprised. As affectionate as Sephiroth had been as a baby, and he had been; so tirelessly needy; there was little of it left after six years. The boy only sought out contact when he was very ill or very tired or very… Hojo frowned. Something had frightened Sephiroth, now all white knuckled with fistfulls of fabric. But there wasn’t time to address it, not now.

 

The crowd stopped advancing when Sephiroth appeared, a horseshoe of staff. In the center was something Sephiroth had never seen before; a non-laboratory woman.

 

She had nothing obscuring her face or her hair; and the clothing she wore was not pale green surgical scrubs, or the clinical white cotton of a labcoat. Her long light brown hair hung to her hips, the ends spiraled into ringlets. Her face was soft and kind and beautiful, with large green eyes and a bow of lips.  And in her arms she held a tiny bundle firmly to her chest, possessive and protective.

 

Iflana stared at the child wrapped around Hojo’s leg, at his one unobscured eye in the shadows of the curtain of Professor’s lab coat. Her grip on the bundle tightened, as did the line of her mouth. Her eyes had gone glossy, but her expression did not change, nor did she speak.

 

Hojo was issuing orders, gesturing. Sephiroth was only half listening, his attention fixed on the tiny pink bundle. There was something inherently fierce about the woman, but gentle, soft. A strength that came from somewhere other than a training facility, from killing. There was no death in this woman.

 

Hojo’s voice sounded different through his thigh. “Put her in Laboratory B for cleaning and initial testing.”

 

One of the assistants stepped forward, made a grab for the bundle. Iflana twist her body to the side with all that quiet strength. Beads of tears lingered in her lashes, but they did not fall the way they had from the orderly. And never once did she look away from the boy.

 

Sephiroth lift his chin to Hojo to display an expression of annoyance and discomfort. He did not like the way Iflana watched him. Hojo peered down into Sephiroth’s small round face, held his gaze a moment before looking back to Iflana. Hojo's next order came harsh, reactive. “Do not separate them.”

 

_Them?_ The boy narrowed his eyes; noticed that the wrap of blankets was moving when he looked back. And a pang of… what? Jealousy? Betrayal? Sephiroth turned away, pushed the entirety of his face even harder into the flesh of Hojo’s leg. He remembered something from somewhere else; being held. Being held in arms tight and safe and warm; of a hammering, terrified heart and of a voice that was not Hojo’s making promises.

 

But of promises, Hojo had said, there were no such thing.

  
  


†††

  
  


Sephiroth lay awake in the bed on his stomach, one of his arms piped through the openings of the plastic side rail. The dim glow from one of the monitors cast a pale strip of light that distort where it hit the wall, just enough to be something to look at with those wide, still eyes. But it wasn’t the light that kept Sephiroth from sleeping; it was the singing.

 

_“haush a'll faoafaiy_  
_ro ho lla'mrc ma'aufaro iya'au a'_  
_ro a sagh a' sa'rloa'o orso_  
_llharo iya'au sroon,_ _  
_ llharo iya'au cmooarl”

 

Something stung tight in his chest, itched and bothered on the inside. Not a feeling, not like a needle or a wound; but something else, from the inside out, an ache. Iflana’s voice was faint and muffled through the air vent as she sang and soothed.

 

_“unussuw irrui sel daln_  
_du irruis resnal_ _  
dunussuw irrui sel rad irruis llruwasr fruun_ ”

 

Sephiroth’s little heart beat so hard he could almost feel the bed shake below him, could hear it slam in his head against the pillow, a rhythm to the words. But it was too fast and out of place and the song was not for him or his little heart.

 

The mother sang to her baby, sweet and sad. The sound of her voice, the gentle love in it, stung. The fact he could not understand her words made him even more lonely, other. It was not his place.

 

Someone had sang to him once too; the man with the face who had left him. Someone else, when everything else was silent. Tears burned and stung and soaked into his pillow. Is that what mothers did? Sing to their children? Hold them tight and safe, away from the grabbing men and the glint of hallway tile?

 

SOLDIERs didn’t have mothers. And SOLDIERs didn’t cry. Professor never cried. Only nobodies and nothings with masks above and below cried, only stupid children asking stupid, foolish questions. He flipped onto his back, smashed his pillow into his face as hard as he could and hoped, for a moment, he would die.

 

_“haush a'll faoafaiy_

_“haush a'll faoafaiy”_

  
  



	20. Mommy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some horror elements and gore. But if you've read this far, you know what you're in for with me, don't you? ;)
> 
> Jenova's dialouge is a poem by Charles Baudelaire, from _The Flowers of Evil._
> 
> Suggested listening [Spleen - Ruth White](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p-1YibE_KQ)

Sephiroth rubbed at his eyes with his fists. He was somewhere he didn’t recognize with no recollection of how he got there. Perhaps somewhere else in the ShinRa building; he had only ever been on a few of the floors outside of the Science Department and all of them looked different from the laboratory. The little boy took lazy, tired steps, let his arms swing limp at his sides. Wherever he was and however he got there, he knew he needed to go back.

 

Professor would be angry.

 

His bare feet kept catching against the hem of his pajama pants, pale blue button ups and spotted with baby chocobos. Whatever this strange place was, it was loud and confusing and hot. Huge metal pipes wormed every which way, metal tentacles boring through the inside of some giant metal beast. Something was rumbling loud enough to make the whole place vibrate, or at least seem that way. A rhythmic _thrum-thrum-thrum_ of pumps surrounded him, made him sleepy. A womb. Metallic knocks and clangs, steam. And the unmistakable, dizzying smell of raw wet mako.

 

Sephiroth stretched an arm up and out to touch one of the metal overhead beams as he passed below it, watched his footing over some thick black cords that ran in veins across the floor.

 

The lights were positioned high on the walls; round and bare and evenly spaced, each bulb housed in a metal cage. They flickered and dimmed as he passed them, taunting a threat of total, noisy darkness. But Sephiroth was not afraid of the dark.

 

Someone was speaking, all echos and reverb. Like a scratchy, warped record, distorted and skipping. Not just one voice, but many;  he could not understand the words to the strange language even though he somehow knew what they meant.

 

_“When the low heavy sky weighs like a lid on the spirit, aching for the light,_

_And when embracing the horizon it pours on us a black day which is sadder than any night.”_

 

Sephiroth peeked his head into one of the doors in the hallway, nothing inside but equipment and controls he did not understand. “Professor…?”

 

_“When the earth is turned into a dripping dungeon in which hope, like a bat, flutters blindly,_

_And bruises its timid wing and tender head against the walls and rotted ceilings.”_

 

Sephiroth wrapped his arms around his little chest, an attempt to ignore the voices that came from nowhere and all around. “Professor?! I think I got lost!”

 

_“When the rain stretching down its long streaks of water imitates the bars of an enormous prison_

_And a silent throng of loathsome spiders come and weave their webs inside our brains,”_

 

His steps had become quicker, an increase in speed through the twisting, endless hallways. Sephiroth continued to peek into doorways, even tried once to turn back but felt even more lost. Something was moving behind him and just in his periphery, never there when he turned to look directly at it. Following. Hunting. 

 

_“And defeated hope bursts into tears. And the fierce tyrant, Anguish, sets his black banner on my bowed head head head head head head head head h-h-h-h-h-”_

 

The last door in the curved hallway opened into a room that was not like the others. It was bright, quiet, _safe_. Sunlight spilled across a wooden floor and onto an ornate rug, revealed plumes of swirling dust in the light. A bed, a small table, a vase of flowers. Another wooden door; on the other side of the room. And a woman, sitting in a rocking chair, her back to the boy. She was holding something in her arms, rocking gently, humming a lullaby. Her long straight hair spilled a banner over her shoulders and the white nightgown she wore.

 

Sephiroth hesitated. He had never seen a room like this one before. There was no tiled floors or walls, no harsh fluorescent light, nothing cold and sterile. He waited, watched and finally, took a timid, silent step forward.

 

Before he could take another, a sound froze him, coming from behind. He spun to face the door, but it was suddenly not the one he had come through. It was another, set against a curved brick wall, rusted and ugly and black. Something on the other side now smashed against the metal, frantic, raging. An iron bar lay across the door, threatened to fail with each increasing impact. The brick around the doorframe cracked and crumbled, and a noise, such a monstrous, inhuman, foul noise. Loud enough to almost drown out the pounding. Somewhere in all that sound, something was sobbing, screaming.

 

Sephiroth’s eyes went wide; a reflexive reach for a weapon that was not there.

 

“Don’t be afraid--” the woman’s voice was kind and soft and so sad it hurt him to hear it. She knew his fear without ever looking. 

 

Sephiroth pivot to face her again, frightened. Who was he in a dusty old room with no weapon, no monitoring equipment, no tests, no Professor? Certainly not a SOLDIER. And if he was not a SOLDIER, he was nothing at all. The woman’s back was still to him, still rocking slowly in her chair. She made no move to look at him. “--he doesn’t want you.”

 

Behind them, the door failed. Sephiroth did not bother to look at whatever burst out from behind it. He darted forward, wove past the bed and woman in the rocking chair. Let himself collide with the door on the other side of the room. The knob rattled, but would not turn.

 

“Professor!” Sephiroth yanked at the knob, both hands. “Professor!!”

 

The sound behind him shattered any thought as it formed, shred apart anything that wasn’t a reflex of escape. Sephiroth looked behind him, the scene too chaotic to make sense of, discern any detail. Except for one. The woman had no face. Just a bound up wad of wound.

 

It didn’t matter; it all looked the same as it was consumed.

 

Another desperate tug at the knob; the door was opened.

 

And now he was somewhere else.

 

No more terrible noises. No more strange, horrible voices. No more mess of pipes and endless doors. This place was big and hollow. He had never been in a place so large; even The Pit seemed small in comparison. The sides of the chamber were lined with symmetrical rows of enormous steel tanks banded in caution tape and warning stickers, the same kind as in Hojo's lab. It was quiet here, except the sound of a faint, rhythmic pumping. Mako rigs, a heartbeat. It took Sephiroth a moment to realize that the walkway beyond the platform was not a walkway at all, but a massive tube. The tube was suspended from the bridge with wires from the ceiling of the chamber, formed a low handrail on either side.

 

At the other end was the woman, a silhouette against an illuminated glass tank. She turned to look at him, smiled.

 

This time, her face was a face.

 

It was the most beautiful face Sephiroth had ever seen.

 

She was wearing a labcoat like Professor, a light blue ruffled blouse beneath. Her long straight hair was gathered at the top of her head, wrapped toward the back with bands of cream colored lace.

 

Sephiroth took a step forward, then another. Yearning. Wanting. 

 

The woman knelt slowly, spread her arms. An invitation.

 

And then he was running full tilt, running to a space he somehow knew was safe and warm and wanted.

 

He hit the cylindrical glass of the tank instead. Felt the heat of the lights, the rumble of something mechanical. Sephiroth stared past his distorted reflection to the empty aquamarine fluid, a sense of longing, of loss.

 

A hand clamped down on the side of his neck, so cold it hurt, spun him around.

 

It was a tall lanky man in a dark filthy suit; the sort Veld wore. A Turk. Professor had told him about Turks--and to stay away from them. This man was foolish and dangerous, said Hojo, and the Professor would be mad. Sephiroth squirmed backward. The hand on his neck fell away, took the rest of the man’s limb with it; a sloppy spill to the floor. Sephiroth cried out, but the man’s grotesque expression did not change. A grin with too many teeth, madness, his skin sick and waxy. Where his eyes should have been were bloody pits, a ruin of where they had been gouged out. Without words, without sound, the little boy heard it.

 

 

disease

another

diseased

 

Sephiroth turned back to the tank, a reflex. It was no longer empty. The woman was inside, her arms folded across her chest, the white of a burial shroud fanned out behind her. The fluid in the tank was darkening, ribbons of blood unfurling from her every orifice.  

 

.

.

m̵̧̭͇̱̲̲̳̪̍͗̌̅̾̅͘͜ơ̸̙̙̞̭͋̊̄͊̚͟m̵̢̰̞͎̯̬͙̺̭͛̓͊̃̈́̀͂͛͘͠ͅm̢̛̫̗͙̭̤͆̉̍̓̿͑͟͡͡y̡̭̲̹̋̑̒̂͗͐͂̈́͆̚͟

.

.

  


Sephiroth spun. Nose to nose with something blue decayed and dead; with one bulging eye and a wicked, gaping grin.

 

  
  
  
  
  


The boy shot up in his bed, gasping. The space beneath him was warm and wet. The great SOLDIER Sephiroth was no such thing. Just a scared little boy who had wet his bed.

  
  


†††

  


“Are you listening to me?” Hojo stopped walking, extend his hand in which he held his clipboard out to bar Sephiroth’s path. The boy stopped only by the resistance of the Professor’s arm.

 

“What is the matter with you, boy?”

 

Sephiroth shook his head, a tumble of messy white obscured a sheepish expression.

 

“I said that it is imperative that you… Sephiroth!” Hojo dropped to one knee, frowned. He cleared the hair from the boy’s face, looked him over. The Professor shoved a pair of fingertips into Sephiroth’s neck, shook his watch out from his sleeve. Muttered something to himself about  potential accumulated mako toxicity, gave the boy’s shoulder a pat at the conclusion of the impromptu exam. “Nevermind. Today will be a rest day.”

 

Sephiroth let out a little whine. “I don’t want to rest! Its _boring_!”

 

Hojo stood, any gentleness in him now notably absent. “If you are unwell, you will rest. You are too valuable to risk avoidable complications. If your body is reacting poorly to the increased dosage, I must return you to baseline before permanent damage occurs.”

 

“I’m not sick! I’m _not_!”

 

“You are acting that way. Soiling the bed, fatigued, distracted--”

 

Sephiroth folded his little arms across his chest, turned dramatically away from Hojo. His admission was one of embarrassment and frustration.  “I got lost in a scary place after I went to sleep. OKAY?”

 

Hojo scoffed. “You can return to your room and rest voluntarily, or I can sedate you. One will be far more pleasant for you than the other.”

 

“There was a place, and everything was metal. Around and around. And dark. And there was a scary door in a house with a bang bang bang inside and a lady in a fishtank and…”

 

“It was just a silly nightmare. A bad dream. If anything, it is more evidence you are ill.”

 

“It wasn’t a dream! There were doors everywhere, with numbers on them. And numbers on the wall. zero-zero. It said zero-zero on the walls and it wasn’t a dream! There were pipes and tanks and mako and--”

 

Hojo crossed his arms over his chest, raised a hand to stroke his chin. “...Interesting.”

 

“And I saw your friend.”

 

Hojo’s dark eyes narrowed behind the lenses of his glasses. “What friend?”

 

“The science lady. I knew she was your friend because she had a white coat like yours and that means she was a science.”

 

“A Biotechnologist.” _Or a physicist, or a vapid romantic._ Her academic focus oscillated as wildly as her personal ones. “Did she…” Hojo’s face was hard, “communicate with you?”

 

Sephiroth shook his head. “No. She only got eated by a monster. TWO monsters. One in a spooky house. Like this! BANG BANGBANG rrrrrraaaaauuughhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeekkkkkk grrrrrrr!!!! And I saw another monster one with all its insides on the outside!”

 

Hojo narrowed his eyes, cautious. “...What house?”

 

Sephiroth’s voice shrank, perhaps residual fear from the dream; perhaps new fear from Hojo. “A… house. A house with a room with wood on the floor. And tall skinny windows with white fabric on them, and the fabric had a zillion holes. And a big bed with a blanket with shapes and a rocking chair and a rug and a metal door on a curvy bricky wall.”

 

An ache caught Hojo in the heart. By no volition of his own, he remembered.  Remembered that room, that floor, that window and the faded discolored lace curtains. Remembered the four warped panes of glass set into the window, the dull worn rug. And the bed, the bed he had once shared with a sleepy, smiling beautiful wife and the promise of their child. Hojo pushed the memory away, chose instead Jenova's gruesome face. 

 

A monster with its insides on the outside; The Jenova specimen had ruptured when Gast thawed it from the glacial ice. It’s abdomen had burst like some rotten fruit from groin to ribs, spilled guts and lungs and ribbons of tissue, all left fated to float around her in her tank. And and another monster, trapped in an old house… The boy sometimes said things, words that did not belong to him. An echo of a memory that was not his. But he was never conscious of it, didn’t seem to know he did it at all. This was something different, something new.

 

“A compromise. We will have an… easy day. No training; but I would like to run some neuroimaging.” Hojo’s mind was racing, a million possibilities, a million applications. Enough to cover the million fears. “First we go back to my office, put away your gear.”

 

Sephiroth trailed the professor, still carrying an arm full of training accessories, a chest pad, shin, knee, elbow and wrist guards. Atop it all, balanced his katana in it’s scabbard.

 

Back in the office Hojo set down his papers, took the sword from atop the pile. He walked to the back corner of the windowless room, worked open a locked metal cabinet and set the katana inside. If Sephiroth was a normal child it may have been a cookie jar that was placed out of reach, not an instrument of killing. But Sephiroth was increasingly violent outside of The Pit, and his unpredictability was becoming problematic. He had killed a total of four staff members, four like the glass panels in the windows of… The locked cabinet would not stop Sephiroth, but it would be a deterrent to impulse.

 

Sephiroth set down the rest of his gear on a chair, looked behind him as Hojo’s door swung inward, cracked against the wall.

 

For a moment, Hojo’s face betrayed him. His ears went bright red, his expression one of rageful disbelief.

 

Veld stood static in the doorway, his broad shoulders occupying most of the space between the frame. He did not cross the threshold.

 

Hojo’s lips part, a physical preparation for words he had not yet formed.

 

“You evil. Sadistic. Mother fucker.” Veld limped forward, eyes of heat and hate. “Do you know who the fuck I am?! I am Veld fucking Dragoon and I am a hard, hard, _hard_ sunovabitch to kill.”

 

Hojo’s face was a storm of anger. From the condition of the Turk, mental and physical, he had found what he was looking for. Hojo had not expected Veld to survive an encounter with Vincent, meant for him to take his discovery, and all of the others, to the grave.  

 

Veld lashed his attention to Sephiroth. “And _you_ …you...”

 

Sephiroth passed a look of cautious confusion to Hojo, who did not meet his glance.  The Professor’s eyes were spears into his target, silent threats.

 

Veld dug something small and silver out of his pocket, tossed it at the boy. Sephiroth caught it mid-air, the same razor reflexes as his father. He turned it over in his small hands, furrowed his brows. When he spoke, his voice was flat, monotonous and cold.

 

“You’re my boss. You don’t know me.”

 

Veld looked as if someone had kicked him in the groin. Then angry; so much anger it made the room swirl and spin. “Sephiroth. Do you want to go _home_?”

 

Hojo finally managed to find his own voice, shoved himself violently forward through obstacles only in his mind. “Don’t you _dare_ do this! You cannot do this!! You will only hurt him!!”

 

“Hurt him?!” Veld shot forward, shoved Hojo as hard as he could against the wall. Something in the man’s back popped and cracked. “Him or _you_?!” Veld twist Hojo’s shirt in one hand, drew back his free fist far behind his ear. Veld would beat Hojo’s face until it caved in, a ruin of shattered bone and teeth.

 

Veld did not notice the blur of movement from the side. Nor did he notice opening of a small, tall door. And he almost didn’t notice his bicep leave his armpit. Not until it fell from the rest of him, fist still coiled around Hojo’s shirt. Not until a spray of scarlet hit the wall and ceiling, pumped madly onto the floor.

 

Sephiroth stood in front of Hojo, both of his small hands tight around the hilt of his sword, a glint of wet red silver.

 

Veld collapsed.

 

Hojo dabbed at the mess on his face with the cuff of his lab coat, raised both brows as he looked to the thing on the floor, grabbing desperately at the space his arm used to be. “Well. That’s a bit ironic, isn’t it? Now you match.”


	21. Similar in Some Ways

The cuffs on his wrists and ankles, all connected and strung to a central restraint, were just for show.

 

People were always comforted by illusions; it did not matter if the untruths belonged to themselves or others. As long as it gave them something to believe.

 

The chains and straps and cuffs, Hojo had planned, would make them all believe that they were _safe_.

 

President ShinRa drummed his fingers along the glossy blond tabletop, twitched his mustache as he glared across to the opposite end. The president had small and icy crisp blue eyes; the sort that were so piercing most found them painful to look at. The sort that were a genetic leg up for dominance and intimidation, a birthright of power. They were locked into Sephiroth’s across the table.

 

Nobody spoke.

 

Heidegger's heavy arms were tight against his chest, and his chin too, the rest of him silent and fuming. The sky outside the executive conference suite matched the mood within it. Smoggy dark clouds smudged a skyline the colors of a bruise. Below, the lights of Midgar spattered the surface of the plate.

 

Hojo was seated next to Sephiroth, gave the boy’s foot a series of nudges with his shoe beneath the table. A gesture of instruction, to stop his participation in the unannounced staring contest. Sephiroth looked to the Professor out of the side of his eye, then back to President ShinRa. The boy’s expression of gloomy annoyance never softened. He did not like being chained up like the creatures Hojo kept in the kennels below the Pit. And he didn’t like all the faces.

 

The disruption of eye contact was enough to prompt the President to speak. He had won. And winning, to icy eyed men like President ShinRa, lulled them into a sense of control. “This has gotten out of hand.”

 

The blonde woman next to Heidegger scoffed.“Kha! Literally.” Sephiroth liked looking at her the least. Her face looked different from the other ones, strange and scary. Her skin and lips and fingernails were colored wrong, a mask of a different sort.  

 

Heidegger's face snapped upward, turned to the woman and also turned dark. “Do you think you’re being _cute_?”

 

Scarlet’s lips, the same color as her namesake, curled slightly.

 

Heideggar’s fist hit the table; his focus hit Hojo. “Your little pet-lab-monster almost killed the head of the goddamned D.A.R! Do you have _any_ idea how hard it would be for us to replace Veld?!”

 

Hojo shrugged. “You seem to be overlooking the fact that it was Mr. Dragoon who attacked me. _Unprovoked_. Sephiroth was merely protecting me. Perhaps you should start looking to hire men for your Turks who aren’t wildly violent, unpredictable fools. Lunatics and drunkards and scrappy little orphans--”

 

The President smashed the butt of his cigar into his ashtray hard enough to send a splash of soot onto the glossy tabletop. “That’s the point of them! Seems your boy there is a prime candidate then, doesn’t it? He can be our new Berserker, since you lost my original!”

 

The suggestion that Sephiroth become a Turk, that he fill the hole that Vincent had left; even as a joke, did not sit well with Hojo. The Professor’s grip tightened around his pen.

 

“Mr. President… if I may,” Scarlet raised her thin wrist, wiggled her delicate fingers. “We’ve all seen the security footage. Professor Hojo is correct in saying that Veld assaulted him, unprovoked. What happened is clear. Sephiroth intervened defensively.”

 

“There is no way Veld attacked Hojo “ _unprovoked_.” Defensively?!” Heidegger's face was now full red, the hue enhanced by the deep black of his beard. “Was it defensive when he tore apart the laboratory technicians and orderlies who simply tried to calm him in the throes of a tantrum about… gods know what?” He thrust his finger in the direction of the boy, but faced the President as he yelled. “Was it defense when he cornered an orderly, threatened to peel their face off with a butter knife for, what, telling him to eat his peas?!”

 

Hojo steepled his fingers. “Those incidents occurred when I was not present. I gave all of those employees detailed instructions about how to interact with him. They knew the risks. They knew the procedures. Safety protocols and--”

 

“--and what happens, _Professor_ , when there comes a time that you are not present... permanently?”   

 

Hojo raised a brow, but the rest of him remained still. “Are you threatening me?”

 

Sephiroth very slowly turned away from the President. The deliberate, steady horizontal swivel of his head stopped when the he was facing Heidegger directly, and once there, he did not move again. Heidegger was a big, great man; standing he was close to six foot three, with a body built like a tank. There was not a man alive who could best him in arm-wrestling or a fist fight or military tactics; but Sephiroth’s unnatural eyes chilled him to his core. He scowled, turned away. “What in the hell is the point of having a weapon that cannot be manned?!”

 

“Heidegger makes a valid and fair point. You have done a tremendous amount for us, Professor. But he is right. What if-- gods forbid-- something were to happen to you? Who here would control him? And what is to keep you from turning him on us should it be to your benefit?” The President looked more uncomfortable with every passing moment. Safe. Safe and in control.

 

“He _has_ , Mr. President! Veld _is_ us! Veld is the ShinRa, the head of the goddamn Turks! If this, this... thing cannot be loyal to the ShinRa, he is no longer a weapon at our disposal, he is a dangerous time bomb on our own turf, nothing more!”

 

Hojo stroked his chin between and index and thumb, had so many things to say but said none of them.

 

Scarlet made a move to interject, her voice a soft purr. Yelling over these men would accomplish nothing. “Mr. President… again, please keep perspective. Veld did attack Hojo, you saw it for yourself. It was defensive. That is the _point_ of the SOLDIER program. To defend and protect us. I am in charge of Weapons Development, which means that I am in charge of our little cherub faced weapon,  am I not? It is clear to me that Sephiroth simply needs to be taught who is friend and who is foe. Your boy is Sephiroth’s age. How are you teaching _him_ to play nicely?”

 

President ShinRa bristled. “There is no comparison! Rufus is no _freak._ ”

 

Hojo’s eyes narrowed. He had seen the little strawberry haired Rufus ShinRa sitting in front of a spread of expensive, pristine toys. The boy didn’t play with any of them. Instead he laid them out in neat little rows. Too scared to touch them, to do anything wrong. A freak of a different kind. And commentary Hojo kept to himself.

 

Scarlet shift her attention to Sephiroth, unnerved by the way the boy stared unblinking and motionless at her colleague. She was thankful his eyes hadn’t settled on her.  “The child must be socialized. He needs to form bonds, learn that _we_ are his friends.”

 

Hojo frowned. “He will be. On schedule. With all due respect, you requested a weapon. If he is socialized too early, there is risk that--”

 

The President's tone shift, annoyed and accusatory. “I requested a mechanism to locate The Promise Land. I know you’ve never been one for budgets, but I sunk _millions_ into the Jenova Project! I have been awaiting the return on my investment and I am not a patient man. You had estimated he would be able to snuff out mako by age two. He is now, what, six?”

 

Sephiroth had not been able to find mako. Nor would he ever. He was no Cetra. The Professor suddenly smiled. His teeth were small and straight, with the exception of his incisors. They bulged out slightly from the row, a slight angle. “You will have your Promise Land _and_ your SOLDIER. He is young. Give him time.”

 

“I’ve given you _plenty_ of time.”

 

“You have. And it is deeply appreciated. You have said so yourself; millions of gil went into the Jenova Project,” the thought of money being the web of so many wounds made his gut churn. “It would be a great waste of resources to reduce Sephiroth to a single function. He can learn to locate mako wells at any time; his training to fulfill the SOLDIER functions as envisioned by Scarlet and Heidegger is a much more complicated and delicate process.”

 

The President looked around the room, sighed. “Scarlet, ensure that Hojo begins a socialization program as you’ve suggested. Hojo, one more incident; _one_ more! If Sephiroth is hostile to any other ShinRa employee or ally from this point forward resulting in a fatality, you will euthanize him yourself. Do you understand me?”

 

Hojo’s lips went tight. Rage struck him like a bullet, a burst so violent and hot it blinded him. He almost flipped the table. If he had been Vincent, he would have. The only vision that remained was imaginary; all of them, all of their parts and pieces in lab glass, cut and dyed in slides, the President’s blue, blue eyes all formaldehyde and jars. They’d be set on a shelf to watch Rufus taken apart, piece by piece, and fed to their family dogs. He blinked away the vision, his fingers tight around the ledge of the table. He hadn’t realized they had gone there. “...Yes.”

  
  
  
  
†††  
  
  


Hojo’s hands shook as he unlaced the restraints, opened the cuffs. He tossed them to the side of the windowless room, stood. He removed his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes.

 

Sephiroth rubbed at the back of his calf with the toe of his shoe, tilt his head to the side. “...Professor?”

 

Hojo did not want to look at him. At his mopey little face, at the red patches on his skin where the restraints had been. He turned away, busied himself with some menial task. Doing was not thinking. 

 

Sephiroth frowned when Hojo did not answer, tried again. “...What does ufinize mean?”

 

Hojo froze. Stayed that way, until little hands tugged at the hem of his lab coat from behind. “Professor? ...Are you… mad at me?”

 

Those huge, unblinking, alien eyes shimmered up in the flood of fluorescent. Without a word, Hojo dropped to a crouch. For the first time in the boy’s life, Hojo hugged him. Sephiroth went rigid as the Professor held him, tight, sincere. He pulled back just enough to see the boy’s face, and with trembling hands tried to push the white mess of hair away.

 

“...No.”  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	22. No Friends Here

It was clear from her face that Iflana had been crying. It was in the swell of her lips, the red and puffed rims of her eyes. Eyes the color of earth.

 

But there were no tears for Hojo to witness or suffer, just the evidence of them having been.

 

Hojo appreciated this. He appreciated not having to wade through a mess of emotions, appreciated her strength. If this woman had been Lucrecia, found herself in a strange place with a dead husband and face to face with the man who killed him, she’d of dissolved into complete hysterics. Begged and bartered. But not this woman. Not Iflana.

 

He sat down at the narrow table across from her, his movements slow and deliberate. She did not address him with anything but her eyes, a firm, hateful stare. Aeris was asleep across her shoulder, wrapped in the pink yarn of a shawl.

 

Hojo looked down to his clipboard, thumbed through the papers. He took more time than was necessary to interact with her. “Iflana is your name, correct?”

 

Iflana said nothing.

 

“Do you know the phrase ‘curiosity killed the cat?’” Hojo did not look up from his notes, nudged his glasses up with a knuckle.

 

Iflana said nothing.

 

“Your, ah, husband? Was a curious man. I was married once, to another... curious person.”  

 

Iflana said nothing.

 

“So _curious_ , they were. And now they are gone, yet we remain… suffering for their curiosities.”  

 

That was enough to prompt a response. Iflana's voice was low and threatening and loaded, but controlled enough to not disturb her sleeping baby. “Do you have _any_ idea what you have done?!”

 

“No,” Hojo smiled. “None.” He leaned in over his forearm, scoot to the edge of his chair. As if he were about to tell her a terrific secret. “Do you know the difference between a wise man and a fool? Fools are certain that they know everything. I am a scientist. It is the nature of my being to believe nothing and be certain about even less.”

 

“A _curious_ fool you are.” Iflana spoke with the heavy, rolling accent of the people from the northernmost continent, though he knew she was something else. “You must be lonely. Thinking of just the right things to say to people who have no choice but to listen. Wax poetic if we must. All that _curiosity_ will get you, too.”   

 

Hojo sat up slowly, continued backwards until he was leaning the opposite direction. He steepled his fingers below his chin, opened and closed them tip to tip. “I should hope so.”

 

Iflana made a noise of disgust, turned her face away from him.

  


“I assume you know all the details about your husband’s last project before you, yes? My wife was a very soft little thing. She wanted to save the whole world. She thought reviving the Cetra meant solving all our modern problems. That she could save us all from ourselves. In the end, it seems, she was only interested in saving herself.”

 

Iflana was growing impatient. “What is it you want? A Therapist?”

 

Hojoj shrugged, dismissive. “When Gast found Jenova in the Northern Crater, he assumed her to be a Cetra. Some lost, lonely woman separated from her tribe. Frozen away for thousands of years. Gast was my best friend, once. There were many admirable traits about him, which clearly, you noticed yourself. That man loved his fairy-tales. Summons, Ancients. I’ve never met a person more consumed or dedicated to their passions as Gast was to the subject of the Cetra. And he _loved_ Jenova so. She was everything he had ever believed; everything he cared for, worked for, fought for, realized. In the flesh.”

 

Iflana had been doing her best to ignore him. But the subject matter was one she could not separate from.

 

“But Jenova was not a Cetra. Was she? Your recorded interviews were fascinating. So tell me. Was it _you…_ some lost and lonely woman separated from her tribe-- for real this time--  that made him feel love, or did you simply become it’s face?”

 

Iflana lift her nose, defiant. “You are a cruel man.”

 

Hojo shrugged again, less this time. “Maybe. I don’t say that to be cruel. I say that to demonstrate that our motives are not always what they seem, even if we believe them. ...All of us, fools.”

 

Iflana, once again, said nothing.

 

“I know what you are. I know what your daughter is. You are in a very dangerous place. And you have no friends here.”

 

Iflana’s grip on Aeris tightened. She bounced the infant gently, transferred Aeris to the other shoulder. “So? You will cut us up, put us in jars? Torture us until I tell you where your “Promise Land” is?”

 

Hojo set his hands in his lap. “I could. The biological data I could extract from you both, physically, would be a wealth of information. It is true that ShinRa’s interest in you concerns the Promise Land.”

 

“I cannot tell you where your Promise Land is, because it does not _exist_ . It is not a place. It is an _event._ ”

 

Hojo continued speaking, as if he had not heard her. “It is _also_ true that ShinRa Electric Power Company _does not know you are here_. And if they find out, yes. I imagine you’d be forced to tell us. If you refused to cooperate, yes, I imagine I’d be tasked with extracting the data from your bodies.”

 

Iflana blinked confusion out of her swollen, wet eyes.

 

“As far as the ShinRa is concerned, Sephiroth is to locate this place, the endless source of the Lifestream.”

 

Iflana tapped her chest with three fingers, directly over her heart. “ _We_ are the source of the Lifestream. You. Him! The grass and the trees and the beasts. I told you, it is no place! He will not locate it, because it is not there!”

 

“You are correct that he cannot. As a toddler, we used to play a game. Simple game. I’d hold my hands behind my back with a vial of raw mako in one of them. He could never guess which hand held the vial, but he was fast. And _strong_. His wounds heal incredibly quickly and he fears very little.”

 

There was something sentimental on Hojo’s face, thoughtful but detached. “So you see, when he no longer had a purpose, I found him another. And now,” Hojo stood, “that purpose is in question. You have come into the fold by unfortunate circumstances. But now you are here. The end is all that’s ever true. The ShinRa executives will, at some point, discover you exist. When that time comes, you have two choices. You are either identified as a Cetra and the key to whatever nonsense they believe, which leads to the cutting up and the jars and all that. Or.” Hojo felt, for a moment, sorry for this woman. Would Lucrecia have looked so natural and proud and certain with Sephiroth draped across her breast? “Or… you make perfectly sure that you tell them _nothing_.”

 

Iflana frowned, a gentle shake of her head. “I…”

 

Hojo stabbed out a gnarled index finger, gave the air a tap for emphasis. “I will protect you and your child. ...But only if you protect _mine_.”

 

There was no way to determine the time that passed between them, the eerie, present silence that seemed to be aware. Waiting. Tears came to Iflana's eyes, but only enough to make them shimmer. “You… should not have done this.”

 

Hojo put his hand on the doorhandle, gave her a parting lingering look. “I know.”

  
  
  


†††

  
  


Professor Hojo stood at the edge of the large interior wall window, back against a pillar. He hoped that Sephiroth would not see him, would not be angry at him for such degrading and humiliating circumstances.

 

The little boy sat cross legged in the center of the room wearing a look of mournful annoyance, and a black band around his neck. There were two other children in the room. Two children, and six adults.

 

None of them were wearing masks.

 

The two other boys were stacking up a pile of blocks, chattering excitedly. One of them would build up a structure, the other would knock it down. They’d erupt into fits of shouts and laughter at each act of destruction until it became a race, stacking and smashing and stacking.

 

Sephiroth stared stupidly at them.

 

Scarlet bent over him, her hands on her knees. She smelled as wrong as the color of her face and lips and fingernails, artificial and cloying. Her eyelashes were all clumped together, fibrous and inky. Her voice was the same. Fake and high and clumpy.  “Don’t you want to play with the other children?”

 

Sephiroth’s eyes dart from the boys to the woman and back.

 

Hojo looked down to the clipping he had cut out of yesterday’s newspaper. A call for children, and a promise of substantial pay. He wondered what slum dwelling families had sacrificed their children to the upper plate; deluded themselves into believing they could touch the foreign world of opulence and luxury just above their heads. Surely no ShinRa employee would allow their own children anywhere near the Science Department. Or Sephiroth.

 

**Short on Gil?**

**Seeking Study Participants!**

 

**ShinRa Electric Power Company seeks children ages five to seven to help develop a social and educational program.**

**Your children can help shape a better future for all children.  Move forward to a safer world with ShinRa!**

  


Hojo scoffed. Lucy would have fallen for that. Nobodies desperate to be somebodies, to fix the world’s wicked problems, to find some sort of meaning in smoke and mirror sacrifice. And worse, worse of all, Lucy needed none of it. She had been special, had been somebody before everything went wrong. A black hole, Hojo decided. A black hole and nothing could have ever, ever been enough. He looked again to Sephiroth, silently urging him to play along, if only so this nonsense could end.

 

The tower of blocks exploded to the sound of giggles, a spray of primary colored wood in the direction of the little SOLDIER.

 

“Go on,” Scarlet picked up one of the rectangles that had landed near Sephiroth, pushed it into his hands. “Get up, go give it to the nice boy.”

 

Hojo wondered how much gil the ShinRa would pay to compensate for an accidental death of a child. Realized that under these circumstances, they wouldn’t. Nobody would know. Veld would step out of the corner of whatever shitcan the family lived in like a shadow. Kiss the parents on their temples with the muzzle of that ugly Turk issue pistol. Protect all our secrets. No, not Veld, all hooked up to IVs and drugged into oblivion in the bowels of the medical ward. Tseng, then. The young handsome teen with all the efficiency of Vincent and none of the risks.

 

Sephiroth took the block with hesitation, pushed himself to his feet. The other boys froze; the room went silent. Sephiroth took a few cautious steps, held out the block in no particular direction. It took a moment, but one of the children retrieved it from him, any hint of childish play cleared from their faces.

 

“Very good,” Scarlet purred, removed a small plastic baggie from her purse and from that, a single gummi-choco. She held it out for him at arms length, a reward.

 

Sephiroth did not take the little candy.

 

One of the other boys made a lunge for it. Treats were rare in the slums, the temptation of a plump, glossy orange gummi was too much to resist. The boy who lunged was suddenly in Sephiroth’s space, close enough to smell, to feel residual body heat, the brush of fabric on skin. Intruder.

 

The flurry of motion hooked Hojo’s attention, spun him violently to face the glass. _No!_

 

Sephiroth’s small voice was quiet, but stern. “Don't touch me.”

 

The boy went across the room, a ragdoll.

 

Five of the adults dove toward the center of the classroom, the one in red jumped back.

 

Hojo could hear it, the buzzing, electric zap of current; even though the glass. Sephiroth’s back arched, spasmed. And the flash of a syringe, an injection the moment he went limp. Both of the other children were crying.

 

Sephiroth was not. He lay on the floor, curled in on himself, dazed from the shock. His eyes had found Hojo’s, haunted there, vacant.

 

The Professor’s own reflection obscured the view into the room, but not enough. He looked away. Turned away.

 

Walked away.

 

And he said it again, not to Iflana this time but to himself. Because the end is all that is ever true. “...I know.”  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	23. Survival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so fucking sorry this chapter took so long to post. I could just say nothing; but I _am_ sorry. I am. If you have been with this series, stuck by me for over a year, invested that time in me, trusted me with that investment... I appreciate it more than I can say, and I'm sorry to keep you waiting. I hope I am able to make it worth the wait.
> 
> Suggested Listening [ Warm Shadow - Fink](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHrLoYsaZ30)

Every time Veld tried to fall asleep, to stop the noise in his mind and body, someone else came in. A rotation of nurses and doctors, checking IV fluid levels, recording vitals, changing the bedpan. Veld knew that sleep deprivation was one of the most effective means of torture, couldn’t help but wonder if all this talk of rest, relax and heal was something else in disguise. Once, he half dreamed of Vincent coming into the room, hand in hand with a little white haired boy. In the dream, it was Vincent who injected a lifetime supply of tranquil into his friend, an act of mercy.

 

This time it was not a nurse, or a dream. It was Tseng.

 

The subordinate Turk stood in the doorway, uneasy. Held a crisp new folder beneath his arm. Veld lift a hand, the only that remained, to wave Tseng in. Tseng crossed the threshold quietly, sat on a rolling stool next to the bedside but did not scoot in. He did his best to not look at his boss, clad only in a hospital gown, unshaven.

 

Tseng cleared his throat, tried to find a visual to focus on, chose the corner seam in the bedsheet. “I’m sorry to bother you. But I--”

 

Veld closed his eyes. Hoped that would help ease the tension. Deplete the revelation of weakness, of humanity. Blanket and under-the-bed-monster logic. Sometimes the things that made the least sense worked the best.  “I need to ask you. When you were sent to Nibelheim--”

 

“What about it?” Tseng remembered what it felt like; the first time in a helicopter. How loud it was, how the body of the vessel swayed and rocked as it hovered off the ground. How the blades were powerful enough to lift them yet vanished entirely in some illusion of motion. How the other Turks had made him sit in the middle of the chopper, cited weight distribution. He had to peek out around the men next to him to see. The view was wasted on the adults, he had mourned, hardened by their own experiences, who traded in their awe of everyday magic for things more practical.

 

“Vincent-- When you, ah. Saw him. Last.” Veld thought about sitting. Did not. If he sat up, he’d probably vomit.

 

Tseng involuntarily conjured a mental retelling. But it wasn’t anything clean or concise. Just boots, black steel toed ankle high boots; untied, the tongues all lolling out. Step. Stagger. Step. The sound they made, the big chunky rubber soles against the tile slick with whorls of blood. Stick, stick, _shlock_ , like velcro, like squeaky, wet sucking.

 

Tseng shifted in his seat.

 

All he could remember were those boots and the way they moved. Like someone drunk; or dying. Tseng had shut his eyes when the boots stopped directly in front of the little end table he hid under, as drops of scarlet spattered the floor. Tseng moved as quietly as a secret, raised the pistol in his trembling hands. He had shut his eyes so tightly he blinded himself with bursts of color; and when he opened them, Vincent’s upside-down face was just inches from his own.

 

Tseng pulled the trigger in a thoughtless reflex, a jolt of survival. The gun did not fire.

 

Vincent smiled. A slow unravelling, a cheshire cat grin. With so many teeth, all of them, all bloody and big. And eyes that were wild and wide enough to see the whole of the irises; the whole of the violence. Tseng had seen all manner of death and despair. That was life in the slums of Midgar, that was desperation and hopelessness of humans. But this face, this face all black and white and red and feral belonged to something past humanity.

 

Vincent’s hand went around Tseng’s throat, and then the boy was in the air. Raised high to see the ruin of bodies around them. Tseng had been so excited to meet Vincent, the legendary Berserker Turk; the strange, quiet man who was said to never be afraid and couldn’t feel any pain. The boy looked down into the grinning face of madness that held him. Pissed himself.  And no helicopter ride would ever feel magical again.

 

Only Tseng’s eyes lifted. “I ran.”

 

Veld did not respond, the only sound between them the steady calm beep of a heart monitor.

 

“He... told me to run. So I did. I was a coward and I ran.”

 

Now, Veld did sit, after some struggle. “You did the right thing.”

 

“Sir, forgive me but--”

 

Maybe it was the morphine. But for the moment, the father in Veld; and maybe for the first time; outweighed the Turk. And in that medical room, in the harsh lights and the emptiness of it all, the line between those opposing concepts blurred.

 

That is what he was. Both. That is what he had been all along. Tseng had come to him as the others had, all scrappy and broken and abandoned. Slum kids. Exceptional thieves, smugglers, fighters. Veld had given them all focus and purpose. He had given them a sense of belonging, of home.  When Tseng had returned from Nibelheim; alone; he had begged Veld not to send him back. At first, Veld had assumed he meant to the mountains of Nibel. He was wrong. Tseng’s pleas to not be sent back meant something else entirely. The Turks, like Vincent before him and all the others that followed, had nothing else.   

 

“You did the right thing; you were obeying the orders of your superior. You followed protocol.”

 

“Valentine was not my superior. He was a _traitor_. I wasn’t following protocol, I wasn’t obeying a chain of command; I ran because I was _scared_ ,” Tseng snapped.

 

“You ran because you were _smart_ . Survival. A _dead_ Turk is a useless Turk. Vincent--”

 

“--We’ve located Koltz’s hideout. They’ve got at least a million gil worth of hyper. Cut materia, locoweed, mythril.”

 

Veld sat up further. The room spun, something not helped by tightening his grip on the bed rail until it hurt. “What? When? _Where_?!”

 

Tseng pulled the folder from the crook of his arm, dropped it on his lap. “I just returned. East. Not far. I have the coordinates, photographs...  It appears to be a temporary operation, all the product looked staged and ready for distribution. They’re close to offload. I wouldn’t have disturbed you otherwise.”

 

Veld heaved his legs over the side of the bed, pulled himself into a slow stand. “Well done.”

 

Tseng stood too, but with much more ease. “Sir?”

 

“This guy’s been the bane of my existence for the past fucking decade. He’s gotten lazy, or stupid, or both.” Veld’s remaining hand went to the stub of upper arm, a subconscious check that it was actually gone. Winced. “Me too, apparently.”

 

“Permission to neutralize the target?” Tseng took a wide step back to clear away from Veld, who had grabbed onto his IV pole for stability. He swayed anyway, atrophy. The adhesive pads of the heart monitor were torn away.

 

“No. Taking out that cache is the priority. If that hyper hits the slums...” Veld almost stumbled onto his face. Tseng almost caught him.  Neither occurred. Veld made a grab for the folder, shoved it under his bandaged bicep. Tseng let him take it.

 

“With all due respect, you are in no condition to--”

 

“Are the others cleared out of there?”

 

“No. Rod is still monitoring the location.”

 

Veld was hobbling out the door, the ties of his hospital gown dragging behind. “PHS him. _Now_.  He’s got ten minutes to get the hell out.”

 

Tseng nodded, a silent affirmation. Following orders. Smart. Survival.

 

Veld was maneuvering through the hallways slower than he believed he could afford. Was almost stopped by a pair of nurses and the receptionist to the medical ward. ShinRa staff paused to gawk or shift into looks of concerned alarm as Veld navigated the sprawling building; IV pole and Tseng giving quick, clean orders into his phone in tow.

 

On the upper floors, Tseng moved in a dance; rounded ahead to work his keycards, grant them restricted passage, hold open doors. Fell back behind, to the side. Not too close, not too far. Something in him said ‘Smart. Survival.’ Everything else pit in his gut, a sense of unease, said ‘something comes.’

 

And along the way, the pair collected a few more Turks. First the ones who had accompanied Tseng and discovered the cash. Knives, and Two Guns. They had been waiting outside Veld’s office for Tseng to return. Others, pulled away from their paperwork, their smoke breaks, their training by the whispers that spread through the building like a wildfire; something’s _happening_.

 

Katana and Shuriken, Shotgun and Fists-- They crept in behind Veld and Tseng, droplets following in the path of least resistance. A silent, rushed parade of Navy blue lead by Veld’s hobbling, bare-assed trek.

 

Scarlet was sitting on the edge of Heidegger's desk, crossed and uncrossed her legs when Veld pushed through the door. There was something inherently sensual in every gesture she made, every movement. But it was as strategic as it was sexual. The rumors were she had fucked her way to the top, sucked and rode her way from a bright eyed intern to an executive seat. Anyone who actually knew her knew better. Scarlet was at the top because she belonged there. “Can’t you _knock_?”

 

Heidegger stood with a look of concern, surprise and annoyance in equal parts smeared across his wind burnt face. “Why aren’t you in the medical ward? What’s happening? You could have paged me!”

 

Veld leaned into the IV pole, tried to keep his attempts to catch his breath from being so obvious. “I need explosives. Tseng discovered a temporary operation of Koltz’s. He’s nearby, ready to unload into the slums.  If we act now we can destroy the cache _and_ take them out.”

 

Heidegger narrowed his eyes, thinking. “I’ll send in some Privates. They can storm the hideout. Kill him and his men, claim the goods.”

 

“No, man. This is _Koltz_ , not some junkie smuggler! We don’t have time; I guarantee he’s got lookouts everywhere-- they’ll see you coming! If we act now, we can destroy his supply and his crew in one go.”

 

Tseng took a small step forward. “The supply is better destroyed. There were indeed materials, but those can be salvaged. The rest of it appeared to be bunk materia and drugs. Nothing of value to us.”

 

Heidegger stroked at his beard between an index and thumb. “You want me to authorize a stealth bombing?"

 

Scarlet rolled her eyes. "Definitive Turk work. Why are you up here bothering us?"

 

Heidegger scowled, puffed his barrel of a chest. "It's proper protocol. That’s fine. Scarlet can furnish you with explosives. Send your boys in, plant the bomb. Be done with it.”

 

Veld’s face went hard. “...No. I’ve been dealing with this guy for years. The fact that sentence is even a thing should tell you all you need to know. It’s too dangerous.”

 

Scarlet slid off the desk, crossed her arms. “Did Sephiroth take your balls along with your arm?! They’re TURKS, Veld; that’s what they do!”

 

The room was spinning. Veld turned to look at the line of men and women behind him. No, not men, not women. Teenagers. Kids. They had arranged themselves in a neat row, quiet and observant. Some wore looks of quiet offense, some looks of subtle confusion. All standing at attention, waiting for orders. And Tseng, the last Turk allowed to be called by a given name.  Veld did not know the names of the others, irrelevant data buried in their employee files. Didn’t want to. Called them by the weapons they specialized in instead; hoped to view them the same. The plan hadn't worked. He could mobilize them anywhere and anyway he wanted-- could march them, like the crew he had sent to Nibelheim, like Vincent, to death. Or worse. And they would go willingly, all of them, because they had nothing else. Not even their names.   

 

It was wrong. ShinRa was wrong. Vincent’s dead cold anguished face was wrong, and Hojo and Sephiroth, and… 

 

Veld let go of the IV pole, squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Airstrike.”

 

Scarlet made a noise of pondering, a _hmm_ chewed around behind her closed sticky lips.

 

“Do you have coordinates?” Heidegger gestured to the folder tucked into Veld’s armpit.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Where is the location?”

 

Tseng cleared his throat behind his fist, for a moment felt awkward about answering for Veld. “On the eastern side of the Midgarian mountain range.”

 

“That is simple enough. Convenient,” Scarlet thought aloud, “expensive, but simple. It would be cheaper to send your Turks in.” She turned her attention to the wall of window, the dark heavy clouds and the soft rain that sprinkled against the glass. “Visibility is low. Orphans and crooks are far more expendable than heavy artillery.”

 

“Fuck the expenses. Take it outta my budget,” Veld snapped. He turned to Heidegger, let his hand drop away from his face. “Sir, request to launch an airstrike.”

 

Heidegger hesitated, thought. Nodded. He picked up the desk phone, punched in an extension with a short, heavy finger.

 

Veld spun to face Tseng. “You confirmed Rod is out?”

 

“Yes Sir.”

 

“Heidegger here. Executive issue for an airstrike. Coordinates--”

 

Veld grabbed the folder from beneath the stump of his arm, fumbled. Without his other hand, the folder and its contents went clumsily to the floor. Papers and polaroids swirled and scattered. Veld dropped to his knees, pawed at the mess. Tseng was the only Turk to move. He crouched, immediately shooed away by his flustered boss. Veld overturned the relevant paper, snatched it from the floor and brought it close to his face. “One-four-seven-two-three-nine-- One-four-five-five-six-dot-zero-four-four.”

 

Heidegger relayed the location. “One-four-seven-two-three-nine. One-four-five-five-six-dot-zero-four-four.”

 

“Bill it to the Turks,” Scarlet quipped without looking up, loud enough for the other line to hear.

 

“Affirmative. Have the paperwork brought up, I’ll sign off.” Heidegger set the handset of the phone firmly back into it’s cradle, gave a little shrug. “Done. Thirty minutes. Might even be able to hear it from here. Since the Turks budget is ultimately _my_ budget, I want whatever material is salvageable collected. This is going to make a big mess. Since you called it, you clean it up.”

 

Veld gave a small, relieved nod. “Yes sir.”

 

 

†††

 

 

Someone’s mother was calling, from a stoop or a porch or poked out of a screen door. Far enough away that the name being called could have been several. It didn’t matter whose it was, they all knew.

 

They could feel it. The cool edge to the wind, the tinge of greenish gray in the darkness to the west. Something static, something in their bones.

 

A storm.

 

Felicia pumped her legs as hard as they would work, her fingers wound around the chains of her swing. Blisters tomorrow, flying for now. She leaned into the backward shift, pulled against the forward. High, higher. Until the swinging was no longer graceful, but a jerky bounce of too much momentum.

 

“Jump, Feli!” a friend down below called, waved her arms. “Hurry up, it’s going to rain!”

 

A tiny hint of wet kissed Felica under the right eye, along side all her freckles. The girl on the ground was getting impatient, ground her heel into the sand. “Come on! We’re going to get soaked! Jump already!”

 

Felicia shut her eyes, gave a few more pumps of her legs. Jumped. Grinned at her sudden weightlessness, at the freedom of it. At the thrill, something dangerous but only just a little. A girl could be dangerous, right? If she was dangerous, like the Turks, like Midgar, like her father himself; maybe he wouldn’t forget to love her. Maybe he’d miss her. Maybe he’d want to be her dad again someday.

 

She landed wrong, too much weight on one side. Felicia spilled onto her knobby little knees, then her palms. Rolled onto her back in the sand. She cringed, pulled her knee to her chest, whimpered. Fat, lazy drops of rain spattered her face.

 

The other children on the playground rushed her, gathered around in a semi circle, leaned in, poked and shook her. “Feli, Feli, you okay?”

 

Felicia opened both eyes. Stunned into stillness. It was not their faces she saw.

 

A peel of thunder rolled from somewhere in the distance. And someone’s mother still called.

 

The children shook and pulled at her. Stopped when her lips part in slack, when her mouth fell open. One looked upward, then the others. Some stood. All staring at the sky.

 

Something was falling. All white and red and yellow, familiar comforting colors. And the ShinRa logo, proud and bold.

 

 _A surprise. For my birthday!_ Felicia almost had time to smile. _He didn't forget._  “Dad--”

 

 

\--

\--

-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	24. A Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to be a lot longer, but I wanted to post _something_. I'm really sorry for the delay. As always, thank you for your patience and your time. I respect and am so thankful for them both.

Sephiroth’s pale, unblinking eyes snapped upward, shift to the side. They had gone colder than the warning chill in his voice. “Stop that.”

 

At ten years old, the boy had already grown to an alarming size. So much of him was limbs, limbs and awkward, ill fitting muscles, his own body worn like a handed down suit. It would have been easy for those around him to forget he was a boy at all; if they had ever considered him one.

 

Aeris did not stop. She didn’t pause, or look up, or acknowledge him in the least. Instead she continued to hum, some improvised tune. It was nothing but nasally dissonance, not helped at all by the off timing and vigor in which she swung one of her legs. Content. By some means.  

 

Sephiroth pushed out from his desk, stood. Hojo rose when Sephiroth did; the sort of reflex that comes only from knowing the secrets of cost. He slid open the center drawer of his own desk without looking, sent his fingers in a silent search for a prepped syringe. A double dose of Tranquil. “Sephiroth. Sit down.” 

 

The boy gave as much regard to Hojo’s commands as Aeris had paid to his. He crossed the classroom, dropped his palms atop her desk. Bent into her, eclipsed her from above, consumed in his shadow. “I told you... to  _ stop _ .”

 

It wasn’t the threat in his tone, or the way he loomed over her that said the same things. It was the disruption of the overhead light that merited her attention. Aeris lift her face to his, met his eyes, smiled. “No thank you.” 

 

Sephiroth straightened. Nobody told him no. Professor, maybe. Nobody else. He was the great SOLDIER Sephiroth; and she was nothing but a stupid little girl. 

 

Aeris resumed her song. And this time, it was with additional zeal.

 

Everything about her was small, her feet and her hands and her slender button nose. Everything except for her eyes, huge and round and familiar. It annoyed him. Her little head annoyed him. And her bouncy hair and her braid and the ribbon her mother put in it. Her cheerfulness and her humming and the drawing she now shooed him away from. The way her face looked like a face that made him feel something he couldn’t identify, a memory, or a promise. 

 

Sephiroth snatched the paper up off the desk, narrowed his eyes. “If you don’t stop making pointless noises, I will  _ make _ you stop.” 

 

“Sephiroth…!” Hojo took a creeping step forward, then another. His throat had gone tight, a flutter in his chest. Fear, that Sephiroth would unknowingly destroy the only thing keeping him alive. Sephiroth was useless; it was only thanks to Iflana's secret feed of information that nobody knew it. The ShinRa executives had long since given up attempting to socialize him with other children. Aeris though, as an infant, had seemed to catch his interest. A tiny and wriggly noisy thing, always in her mother’s arms. He seemed to be fascinated by her helplessness, by the gentle hands required to tend to her. Everyone was soft with her, quiet and careful. Even Hojo. Especially Iflana. 

 

As she grew older, she seemed anything but helpless. She was boisterous and bright and stubborn.  Sephiroth, for the most part, ignored her. Once during an examination, the Professor had foolishly turned his back to her. Just long enough for the toddler to smile a wet, toothless smile at the boy next to the examination table. Long enough for her to reach for him, long enough for him to take her tiny fingers into his fist, crush them. Long enough for her look of confused betrayal and her wounded wail to burn itself somewhere. 

 

Never again though, did he hurt her. Now… Hojo knew enough to sense it, and to attempt to break it before it began. “Sephiroth, come. It’s time for--”

 

“Hey! _No_!” Aeris shrieked; launched herself atop the desk, landed on her elbows. Fearless. “Give it back, it’s mine!” 

 

“What even is this?”  Sephiroth raised an arm, and with it, the paper. He bobbed it over her head, kept it tauntingly out of her reach. On the paper was a drawing, the grainy wax of crayons. Two stick figures, one big and one small, hand in hand. They stood on a scribble of green, a swirl of yellow above. Both of the figures were smiling. So was the sun.

 

“It’s miiiiiine!” Aeris’ protest was as sincere as it was mournful. A scramble to her feet on top of the desk, and a hop; an attempt to grab. 

 

“What is it?” For a moment, Sephiroth considered shoving her off the desk. A few fingers to her chest, and the girl would go backward across the room, a limp little ragdoll. If he used bolt, he’d stop her heart. A fingertip against the knit of her sweater, a simple spark. It was his face that sparked instead, lit with a sloppy smile at the idea.  

 

Instead, he almost let her catch the paper. The tips of her fingers slapped closed on either side. Aeris tugged downward, Sephiroth lift. 

 

“You have to give it back! It’s me! It’s me and my mommy!” Aeris wailed. 

 

“It’s  _ trash, _ ” Sephiroth spat, tore the paper into two. Both halves were crumpled in both fists, tossed into her face. 

 

Hojo’s fist had gone numb around the syringe.  _ He hasn’t hurt her. _

 

Aeris wore a look that Hojo had seen before; the night years ago he had bartered with the girl’s mother for Sephiroth’s fate. Like mother like daughter; so full of tears, and an absolute refusal to share them. 

 

_...He isn’t hurting her.  _

 

There was a meanness to Sephiroth’s voice when he spoke again. So much of his hurt turned into something else, released onto something weaker. “Your drawing is stupid. So are you. You’ve never even been outside. You don’t even know what it looks like.” 

 

Aeris stomped a foot, sent one hand to her hip, the other in the direction of the classroom wall. Taped up among the educational posters was a scenic print; a sprawling grassland, the sun clear in a pristine blue sky. 

 

Sephiroth made a noise of indignance, turned away.

 

Hojo felt himself slip the Tranquil into the pocket of his labcoat. _ He won’t hurt her.  _ But there was no relief in it. Something curious. Something sad. 

 

†††

 

Sephiroth could hear her out in the hallway, her little footfalls on the tile. He didn’t bother to look. The room was illuminated only by the fuzzy picture of the television, a lonely pale cast. Sephiroth sat with his chin on one knee, only lift it when he heard something skitter across the floor. A ball of paper. And Aeris was gone.

 

He stood from the bed, hesitate before bending to retrieve it, worked the crumpled paper open. It was the drawing, taped down the middle. Next to the sloppy simple figures of herself and her mother, she had added Sephiroth in black crayon. All holding hands. All smiling. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	25. What I Am

Sephiroth opened his mouth, allowed it to fill with the sputtering streams of water. Spit it at the shower wall, through his teeth. A water dragon, not a little thing in an echoey, empty shower stall.

 

Some of it hit the back of a hand, slipped through the flimsy white mylar curtain. The hand, it would seem, belonged to Hojo. “What is it you are doing in there?”

 

“I AM THE GREAT LEVIATHAN! PPPPSSSS!!”

 

“Stop playing. Time to get out.”

 

For a second or a heart beat or something as wasted as both, Sephiroth contemplated and ending.  “I AM THE GREAT LEVIATHAN! RETURN MY SCALES OR I WILL BRING A TIDAL WAVE TO SWALLOW YOUR VILLAGE!”

 

Hojo twist the shower valve shut, passed a towel. “Out.”

 

The boy did as instructed, emerged dripping, draped in the towel. He sulked. “Nobody would tell Leviathan what to do.”

 

“Leviathan isn’t real. Who told you about Leviathan?” Hojo dropped another towel atop Sephiroth’s head, rubbed it in small tight circles. There was something as humiliating in it, even if it was meant to be kind. Shame, then.

 

Sephiroth’s little head bobbed all around under the push and pull of the towel. “I saw it. In a book. A great big book about summons! A big book by Grim-borey Valentine.”

 

Hojo frowned. “Yes, very boring indeed. Did you look up the summons in your classroom?”

 

Sephiroth shrugged. Not telling was not telling a lie.  “I like Shiva. Did you know that she’s the goddess of snowboarding?!”  

 

Hojo gestured to the scale near the sink. Something had changed in him.  “Climb on. The summons are not real. Not in the way you are thinking. They are folk tales, Sephiroth. Stories.”

 

Sephiroth stood on the scale, tried to stand still. The disappointment welling in him at Hojo’s words made him feel wiggly. A little boy with the strength of a water dragon, or a titan, or a meteor. And an ending.

 

“The world is full of idiots. Comb your hair or it will dry in knots. I set the comb out for you on the sink.”

 

Sephiroth hopped down. Moved to the sink. Stood on his toes, smeared his palm across the fogged surface of the mirror. He stared into the space of clarity he had created, gently touched the side of his nose. Drips of unused water plopped down onto the tile of the shower floors, spattered apart loud and fat.

 

“Professor?” Sephiroth turned, tilt back his head to look into Hojo’s face through the lingering steam. At the rounded and flat downturn of the man’s nose, at his thin, stern lips. At the lines etched into his face from frowning.

 

_Gods and Gaia, you look just like your father._

“Mmm?”

 

Sephiroth hesitated.

 

_Drip, drip, drip, plop._

 

“...Are you my dad?”

 

Hojo swung the clipboard in reflex, a hard wide arc.

 

The crack of wood and metal against flesh echoed off the tile, punctuated by the clatter as the board fell to the floor, as the pen skittered and rolled beneath the sink. He had hit Sephiroth so hard he knocked him sideways and down.

 

The Professor had hit him so hard, in the head and in the heart, the world blinked around him. He blinked too, shut his eyes, opened them again.

 

Hojo took a few stunned steps backward, a look of revulsion wrung into his face. Both hands went to the temples of his glasses, a slow, disoriented adjustment. Clarity, clarity.

 

And in the doorway of the shower room, something appeared.

 

A silhouette, long and thin and tall.

 

Hojo lurched forward, shoved a gnarled finger between the boy's eyes, glasses straight. "What are you, a _child_?!"

 

The silhouette was no longer a vague shape as approached, but a man. He moved so seamlessly, so quietly Sephiroth was unsure if he was real. A creeping shadow. His face was a shadow, too. No, a mask, but not the sort everyone else wore. There was no blue cotton obscuring his features, but a look so empty and motionless it could be nothing else.

 

Hojo froze. And very slowly, straightened.

 

He could feel the man behind him, first his presence, a sence beyond six; then the heat of breath, a soft, slow exhale. Hojo spun.

 

And Vincent caught him by the face.

 

Sephiroth tried to get up, to will his body to move. Something held him still. There was no time.

 

The line of Vincent’s lips was hard and tight. Teeth clenched violently enough to accent the severity of his jawline, a visible throb just beneath.  His eyes had gone wide, but the rest of his face was still. He needed no emotions in his face. They sung in his movements.

 

The back of Hojo’s head struck the lip of the sink hard enough that half of it crashed to the tiled floor, a horrid, high noise. Hojo did not follow.

 

Vincent had him, still by the face with the palm of one hand, now by the collar with the other.  There was blood too; dribbling down the back of Hojo’s labcoat, spattered on the sink. Vincent swung Hojo into the wall, pulled him away, slammed again. And again. Again.

 

Sephiroth’s mouth had fallen open, stunned. Lost. He did not dare move. _Folk tales. Someday I’ll take you there. Grim-borey Valentine._

 

Vincent’s thumb worked up Hojo’s cheek, over his cheekbone, under his glasses. Wormed its way to the Professor’s eye socket, and then inside of it.

 

Hojo fought back meekly, swat, twist. Beads of scarlet cut down his cheek, wrapped around the web of Vincent’s fingers, around his wrist.

 

Vincent flicked his thumb out, a sucking squelch. Threw Hojo to the floor. There was no fight left in the Professor, just a weak attempt to roll onto his front, shield the ruin of his face in an elbow.

 

Vincent swung a long leg over Hojo’s, dropped down to straddle him. Even gave him a friendly little pat on the right buttcheek. There was something playful in it, something unsettling and disorienting and cruel.

 

Sephiroth sat up, a small scoot backward. Amazed and scared and stupefied.

 

Vincent raked his fingers beneath Hojo’s hair elastic, worked them under his hair, against his scalp. Tightened his fist. Lift. Slammed. Lift. Until less and less form came up every time Vincent pulled back Hojo’s head, until there was no jaw anymore, no nose, no face.

 

Until Vincent slowed, stopped. Sat. A mess of black bloody hair hid the upper half of his face, but Sephiroth could clearly see the lower. See the way his lips pulled back, the way his chin tucked down. The man that was a shadow and a mask and a cruel thing made a series of small noises, a suck of air through mucus and teeth, rapid and sharp. His shoulders heaved, shook.

 

And then he was still, and silent. The large tiled room was quiet except for the single _plish_ of a drop falling to the floor from the broken, bloody sink. Ringing, in the air, or in ears, or in a memory that wasn’t wanted.

 

Vincent stood. Tugged at the bottom of his suit coat, planed his hands along the sides of it, down his pants. Would have left whole handed smears of scarlet and tissue if the suit wasn’t already saturated with it. He tried to smooth down his hair too, straightened his tie. None of the motions helped his appearance, just spread the echoes of his violence.

 

When he looked to Sephiroth, the boy’s heart froze. And when their gaze met, neither let it go.

 

Vincent moved cautiously, slow. Such hesitation in each step. Fragile. Frightened. He lowered himself to a crouch, one hand on the ground, one on his knee. Both were trembling.

 

Sephiroth stared at Vincent’s face, his bloody tear streaked face. At his severe, sharp nose. At the arch of his eyebrows, at his strong, angular chin.  At a mouth a bit too big for his face, at wet eyes, dark and deep and sad. For a long while, neither spoke.

 

_Gods and Gaia, you look just like your father._

 

 _Oh,_ thought Sephiroth. _This is what I am._

 

Vincent’s voice was deep and smooth, beautiful and unexpected set amongst the destruction. Perhaps because of. “...Hey.”

 

Sephiroth knew who the man in front of him was. Not just by the tell of physicality, but by _feeling_ . This man felt like _Safe._ Felt like _Loved._ Felt like _Home._ A tear cut down the side of Sephiroth’s little face, but he did not move to wipe it away. He knew enough to know that feelings are not real, and this man was none of those things.

 

“...You… okay?”

 

Sephiroth nodded, more tears.

 

Vincent’s brow twitched. Once, twice. Until his expression collapsed. And suddenly he looked, somehow, more wounded than what remained of Hojo. “...Okay.”

 

“...You… hurt Professor.”

 

Vincent made the motion of looking back at his work, at the dead thing face down on the floor. But his eyes never left his son. “Uh. ...Yeah. A little bit.”  

 

“Is he dead?”

 

“...Yeah. Sorry.”

 

†††

  


The dream woke him up first. If it hadn't, the EKG monitor's frantic bleating would have. _Stop_ , Sephiroth thought, disoriented and desperate. _Stop. I'm losing his face._

 

An orderly first. Another. Lights. Fussing. Checking. _Touching_ . Sephiroth waved them off, pushed back with forearms and wrists. Gentle, though, a swat-swat-swat. Violence had lost its appeal somewhere in the sleepy chaos. _I am not, I am not._

 

Hojo appeared in the doorway, wrapped in a bathrobe over his gray scrubs, his pajamas. This time with no shadows creeping behind. The Professor’s presence was a comfort, despite the annoyance on his face and in his movements. He still had a face.

 

Sephiroth peeled off the monitor patches, sat himself upright.

 

“What is going on in here?” Hojo pushed himself past the orderlies.

 

Sephiroth’s mouth felt as if it had been filled with cotton, tasted like something had died.  “Bad dream. I’m fine.”

 

Hojo frowned. Worked his fingers around the curl of paper extruding from the monitoring rig, looked. “Some dream.” He shook his watch from the sleeve of his bathrobe, pressed his first two fingers into the side of Sephiroth’s wrist. The monitors were not enough. Once, when Sephiroth was a toddler, he had spiked a high fever. Hojo had taken his temperature every hour on the hour. Even still, his wrist found it’s way to the boy’s brow every quarter more.  

 

“Get them out,” Sephiroth groaned, “turn off the lights.”

 

“Did you urinate?”

 

“What! No! No--”

 

Before Sephiroth could protest, Hojo had lift the edge of the bedding, peered beneath. Shame, then.

 

“Professor, I told you I--”

 

Hojo dropped the blanket. “It is relevant information.”

 

“I’m not some stupid little kid anymore, I’m sixteen!”

 

If Hojo was listening, he showed no symptoms of it. He did however, genture to the orderlies, a wave of dismissal. “Leave us.”

 

“Turn off the liiiights,” Sephiroth pulled a pillow across his face, threw himself back and down.

 

“Your dream. What was in it?” Hojo fished a small notebook from his robe pocket, thumbed through worn pages.

 

“ _Noth-ing_ ,”

 

“A place? Voices?” Hojo found a blank space to write, readied his pen. “...A person?”

 

“Yeah,” Sephiroth said with more disdain than the question meritied, clear even through the muffle of the pillow. “ _You_.”

 

Hojo glanced over the rim of his glasses, kept his eyes fixed on the lump of blankets. Without looking away, he slowly shut the notebook, slipped it into his robe pocket. Neither of them spoke.

 

Hojo moved to the doorway, tapped down the lightswitch. “...Goodnight, Sephiroth.”

 

Hojo lingered in the still and the quiet. 

 

“Just you.” Sephiroth said, clear this time. He had removed the pillow.

 

“Mmm?”

 

“In the dream.” Sephiroth flipped himself over and onto his side, back to the door. “It was just you.”  

 

  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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